Mr. John McCarthy:

Exactly, which I believe was in December 2015. We dispute that with the Commission. The Commission has not said action is needed. All it has said is that there is a risk of a significant deviation and that we should take action to make sure that this risk does not materialise, so to speak.

Once one allows for one-offs, we believe we will win the argument considering that, on a multilateral basis with all member states, there is support for the Irish view on the treatment of one-offs. At the European semester discussions which took place last week and the week before, it was agreed that we would discuss the matter further with the Commission on a bilateral basis. As I believe there is support for us, I strongly suspect that we will win the argument.