Mr. John McCarthy:

It is an actual outturn so, as reported by the CSO, it is 68% or just below 70%, as the Secretary General said, and it is expected to be 66% this year. When I talk about debt-to-GDP being irrelevant, I am not talking about the rules; I am talking in terms of assessing debt sustainability in Ireland.

To elaborate on the point made by the Secretary General, in practically every other country in Europe there is virtually no difference between GDP and GNI. We are the outlier because of the size of the multinational sector in the Irish context. We have a situation where there are approximately 190,000 firms in Ireland and five of them account for one third of our exports. We have a very small economy with a very large multinational sector that distorts our GDP. This means that one must look below the bonnet in order to get a better indication of what is happening, including with regard to debt sustainability. I am sorry that was more than ten to 15 seconds.