Professor Philip Lane:

Perhaps this might provide some reassurance. We have an additional tool called the countercyclical capital buffer which we look at every quarter - every three months. This is something that can move at a much higher frequency. Its role is to detect overheating of growth in credit growing. I think it is a very good idea. Under European law, every European country has to make a new, fresh assessment of whether credit in the economy is overheating every three months. That is the measure we can move more frequently. In the Irish economy, I would agree with the idea that we need to be continually looking. There is a lot of European focus on the phrase "countercyclical capital buffer". We just released our current assessment a few days ago. We do assess.

We are forced to assess and have a routine of doing so every three months. We have a tool for the quarter by quarter-type assessment.