Mr. Vasileios Madouros:

In terms of assessing where the economy is and has been and the faster than expected growth rates, one of the big news items this year was the revisions by the Central Statistics Office about how the economy actually performed last year. The size of the economy excluding liberalisation effects actually grew by 5%, which was a lot higher than previously estimated. It speaks to the Governor's points about the kind of double-sided risk. We are now closer to the supply capacity of the economy than we thought.

Ireland's headline fiscal position relative to other countries is certainly much more positive than a number of other countries across Europe. Of course, as we always say, we need to look under the hood because this headline position incorporates excess or windfall corporate tax receipts. If these are excluded, there is an underlying fiscal deficit.