Mr. Robert Watt:

There are a number of ways to look at it. Obviously, there is the deficit as a percentage of GNI* and the €40 billion cash amount for this year and next year. Our debt as a percentage of GNI* will get up to about 115% or 120%. That is one metric to look at. Another metric to examine would be our interest costs as a percentage of our revenue, which peaked at around 11% or 12% in 2013 and is now down to about 4%. It is not just the stock of debt, we must also look at the cost. My view on this is that we have to do this for this year and next year, but there is a limit or ceiling. It is really determined by the cost of servicing this debt and our ability to fund it, which is a function of the role of the ECB, how savings and investments will evolve across the globe over the next number of years and a variety of factors. If we have a low-interest environment for the foreseeable future, these debts will be manageable and sustainable. If we moved back to a situation where the cost of new money is 2%, 3%, 4% or 5%, which is the norm or average we would have expected for a sovereign like Ireland, of course, the interest bill becomes more expensive.

There is a ceiling. Nobody knows what that is. Of course, one does not want to find out what the ceiling is. It is like finding out from the bank manager what is the limit to one's overdraft. One does not really want to find out what it is. We are going to avoid that.