Professor Alan Ahearne:

I don't think there was any amendment. I mean this was ... the national recovery plan was written in Dublin. I ... there was some comments ... when Olli Rehn came in early October ... excuse me, in early November, he must have had some details because he ... there was a little bit of discussion there about the national recovery plan. I mean, he just had some suggestions about if you're going to do a VAT increase, you shouldn't do it right away, you should do it in the future so people can ... will, anticipating the VAT increase, bring forward their expenditures. Just some issues like that. But the plan was written in Dublin and it was more than presentation. It was ... the Irish Government felt - Brian Lenihan felt - that they were doing the right things, they had been doing fiscal consolidation, that they were on the right path and they wanted to go down that path and they knew they had more information about - economically and politically - about the Irish economy than ... than outsiders did.