Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not suggesting it is the annual fee. That is the headline. I want a breakdown of that. The firm is doing a good job for the agency. The witnesses appear before this committee every year and every time they do or they talk or give a press conference, they give the a good impression of the agency to most people in terms of how much it is has refinanced and that the interest it has on new loans it is taking out, that is replacing old debt, is less than 1%. If people were to listen to the agency, they would assume it had most of this under control, but it transpires this morning that Mr. O'Kelly said that in the past three and a half years the agency has only replaced €50 billion, which is 25% of the debt, a quarter of it. If only €50 billion was replaced during those years, that amounts to €15 billion per annum, which is only about 7% of the agency's total debt. The agency does a good deal of selling information on how much it is replacing the old debt, but when we examine what the agency does and break it down, that accounts for only 7% of the agency's debt in any one year, on average. We only hear about 7% of its debt. The witnesses never tell us about the other 93% of it. They sell a good story. If one were to believe the information they put out, one would think we nearly had all the financing of our debt down at 1% or 2% at this stage. That is the only story we hear from them, but it transpires it is only 7% of the debt that benefits from such announcements. Does Mr. O'Kelly get my point?