Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That concludes this round. Before Deputy Howlin comes back in, I want to pose some questions.

I do not know if this can be seen as me causing trouble but I want to go back to the point made by Deputy Howlin in respect of the level of debt being incurred, the borrowing that is being done and the ratio involved. There has been exponential growth in that. At what point does the auditing function come in to point out the potentially catastrophic situation that could arise? I ask that because if we go back to the debt crisis of a number of years ago, local government in certain member states was borrowing at a completely ridiculous rate. Eventually, that got picked up by central government, by the states themselves but because it was being done in an off-balance sheet or off-observation way, it did not become a particular issue for citizens or central governments until it had reached a crisis point. It is a question of when to say stop and that worries me hugely. Should there be a role for the auditing authority to say that there is a potential for this to go wrong? As Mr. Murphy stated, there is already an acknowledgement that the end game rests with the member states having to pay it. There will be governments elected in member states over the next five years which will campaign on the basis of them not being liable to pay anything. The undermining of the entire European funding model is at stake here. The worst problems are always incurred by things that are put in place to deal with a crisis. Everybody's attention is off the ball in terms of the back-end regulatory stuff and the long term implications because they are all trying to dig themselves out of the current hole they are in. Should the court of auditors not be shouting louder and harder? Should it not be saying that this has to stop?