Mr. Ajai Chopra:

I think if I look back to how I thought things might unfold back in November 2010 ... a couple of observations. One is I don't think any of us realised that things would actually get quite a bit worse for a while, and they did get quite a bit worse. And this was not related to what Ireland was doing; this was related to what was happening in the broader eurozone. So that part was a surprise. I mean I think, as you said, the former Government and the current Government were doing their utmost to deal with the situation but what they were doing was being swamped by what was ... by conditions in the broader eurozone. But once some of those broader eurozone concerns and problems began to be addressed, I think Ireland ended up doing better than I thought it would. You know, in my written statement I talked about some of the issues about public debt sustainability and how that turned out to be better than we had anticipated. I don't think any of us foresaw that growth would rebound in quite as solid a way but, you know, whenever I talk about growth, I think it's very important to move away also from the headline growth numbers and think in terms of levels. In terms of levels, it's only now in 2015 that per capitaGDP in Ireland is returning to its level in 2007, and that's a long time.

So, you know, there have been a number of upside surprises but I think things could have gone even better if the overall macroeconomic approach in the eurozone had been stronger, and I've talked a little bit about that already, and if there had been even greater eurozone solidarity and mutualisation.