Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

I will take those questions in a different order. The question of scarring effects on the economy, particularly transport and accommodation, is something about which we are very concerned. Some of these sectors have been very badly hit. We know the Government has put in a lot of support but ultimately we do not know how long those companies will be able to last under these conditions and we do not really know how quickly consumers will start travelling again. As with some of the effects of a hard Brexit, which, again, is a shock we have never seen, it is very hard for us to evaluate what those risks are but we just need to be aware of these risks, which is why we drew the committee's attention to them.

The second question concerns the difference between the €5.4 billion, which is on an Exchequer basis where we have a very good handle on what is being spent and what is going on and this non-Exchequer part that is also within the general Government. It is important in terms of public finances, and this is how the European rules are specified, that we should not just look at the Exchequer, which is an important part of the institutional mechanism in Ireland. We should also look at the overall role of the Government, as measured by the general Government. This is how the fiscal rules are specified, which is one of the reasons we are so interested in it. The part that is not covered by the Exchequer is some 20% of the total so it is very big but up until recent years, basically not very much was happening there so it did not have a large impact on the kind of fiscal aggregates at which we look.