Professor John McHale:

The Deputy is being a little unfair to us on that. Last year, we came out and said in our pre-budget statement that the Government's plan for a package of €1.5 billion was appropriate and prudent policy. The actual package was twice that. We would not usually come out directly after a budget. We like to come out when we produce the reports but that was such a deviation from what we had said was prudent and what we expected. I did an interview the morning after the budget and stated clearly that we saw this as a deviation from prudent policy. Where we see those deviations, we are not afraid to express those opinions strongly. We got quite a lot of flak for coming out on it but we felt it was necessary. We had said something was appropriate, which was based on what the Government said it was planning to do, and then something very different happened. We will be willing to draw attention wherever we believe there are deviations from what we see as the appropriate course.