Mr. John Palmer:

I will answer the first question. What I was trying to say is that, assuming we have put forward fiscal plans that comply with the structural balance rule and the expenditure benchmark, then, all things being equal, given the way GDP is growing, there will be no problem complying with the debt reduction rule. I think this is what Deputy Ó Broin was driving at. At that point, in theory, one could borrow additional money and still comply with the debt reduction rule.

As a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation, in theory in 2017 in GDP terms we need to reduce the debt ratio by about 1.4% overall. We currently have a projection of 2.7%, which reflects the fiscal plans. There is a gap between the two. If we use that money for general Government expenditure, we immediately put ourselves into problems with the expenditure benchmark and probably also the structural balance rules, but if that money were used for other purposes which were deemed commercial, that would be a possibility. However, the Deputy is right. General Government debt would go up. Further, as already mentioned, ISIF has €5.4 billion that it has not committed yet. Why would we borrow when we have that money?