Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

My comments were at a macro level. I am not specifically talking about anything in particular. The ECB, the governing council and Ms Christine Lagarde have, over the last couple of years, emphasised that any support given by governments through this cost-of-living crisis should be targeted, tailored and temporary. Obviously I agree with that as a general proposition. For the Irish economy, because it is operating at capacity, it is even more important, given that monetary policy operates at the euro area level, that fiscal policy does not militate against what we are trying to do and make the inflation problem worse domestically. One of the consequences of us having such a strong economy, paradoxically, is that fiscal policy decision making needs to be extremely careful. What I have been saying, in the letter I wrote to the Minister in June and in statements I have made in the past, is that the Government needs to take great care in how it designs its budget so that it does not exacerbate the problem that we are trying to address at the ECB.