Mr. Seamus Coffey:

Almost all of the difference would be about right. That is because of the scale of the difference involved. Consider France, which spends 14% of its GDP annually on public pensions. That is a huge sum of money washing through their government system. Whereas in Ireland, even if one takes the pre-revision figures, we spend 4%. If Ireland moved to the French pension system, it would involve spending 10% of GDP and would lead to €20 billion extra per just going through that one system, namely, our pensions system. France has a completely different pension system to Ireland. Almost all of the French pensions run through the state. While we are lower in government revenue, it is primarily driven by the fact that we have very low social insurance contributions and we do not have the benefits to match. When one makes the comparison, that is the big one that jumps out.