Mr. Mario Draghi:

Deputy Burton asks a lot from the ECB. Our policy has now kept the interest rates at such a low level for an unprecedented period of time. We complemented this policy with the purchases of assets, both Government and private corporate bond assets. In a sense, it has been a policy that has helped debtors and helped entrepreneurs. It helped the private sector, helped Governments, and to the extent that it engineered the recovery, it also helped banks, insurance companies and pension funds which complain a lot about low rates. They should complain less, thinking that if the recovery had not taken place, the exposure of the banks would have been much higher, the NPLs would be much higher, and there would be many more clients who would not be able to pay back. This policy is now producing a concrete result.

As I stated at the beginning, the economy is improving everywhere. The main drivers are consumption and investment this year more than exports. Last year, it was more exports. In my view, there are two most important data. The first is the employment data. The number of jobs created, as I stated, is 9.2 million. There were never so many jobs being created in five years in the European Union. The second is the dispersion. At the beginning of the crisis, we had countries which were doing relatively well and countries which were not doing well at all, and the dispersion in growth rates was high. Currently, the dispersion is at the lowest level historically. That also gives a sense of comfort. This has been achieved through low rates.

Often we are told that our asset purchases are benefiting those who own assets, namely, the wealthy part of the population. As a matter of fact, we went through a quite elaborate search here trying to assess the distributional effects of our policies. Certainly, asset prices go up and assets are, by and large, owned by rich people, but also there is the reduction in unemployment. The most important cause for income and wealth inequality is unemployment. The two effects offset each other and, by and large, the monetary policies being pursued have not increased and if anything, have improved distribution. Also, one must consider that gain has two sides. The increase in the value of houses has improved mostly the low-income house owners in many countries. Specifically here, there are issues that the ECB cannot do much about because there are the sorts of constraints to supply that constrain the housing market. This is my understanding. These constraints, however, are getting less and less bidding, if I understand well, in that construction supply is increasing. All in all, we should be waiting for less price pressures on housing. It is also true that, thanks to the recovery, demand is also buoyant in the housing market. All in all, our policy has helped people.

One of the parameters we always look at is exactly what Deputy Burton mentioned, namely, wages and what is happening to nominal wages. We look at that because, for us, it is the best predictor of inflation which is our objective and is in our mandate. Data in the past six to 12 months show that wages are gradually going up.

They are not going up because of temporary effects but more and more because of permanent effects. Wages in Germany and in the euro area have been going up. In Ireland it is 2.5% which is slightly higher than the euro area average and certainly higher than in many other countries. It has been a big crisis and it has taken a long time to get out of it.