Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

Again, it is a similar dynamic but the Deputy is absolutely right. In the background, we are trying to do it. Going back to the Chairman's point, we are trying in the background to improve where the opportunity arises. If the market had too many of one security and was looking to sell those, we could do that in the background. This year, we have bought back €1.5 billion of bonds and swapped them for longer-term debt because the mathematics around the premium versus the savings was an official gain. It does not always work out. It depends on what the pricing is and where investors want to sell them to and where they are prepared to buy bonds that we are going to reissue. That mathematics is being looked at all the time. Whenever we can, we do a trade, whether it is on official terms in a reverse auction or unofficially as we do in the background. As I said, we have done €1.5 billion in the background so far this year. One needs to have flexibility in the market.

Like anything, if one announces and pre-announces what one will do, and everyone knows exactly what one is going to do, the market will be able to set up for that trade and potentially the value would decline and one would not get the efficiencies one might have got. I advise the Deputy that we have done that and when there is a gain to the State, we will try to do that.