Mr. John A. Moran:

The numbers for the budgetary projections we published and which we are working off have not assumed any guarantee fees for next year. It is not a case that if the guarantee is removed, there is suddenly a hole in the public finances that needs to be filled. What we do about the guarantee must be a balance. It is often forgotten just how much money is taken out of the banking sector as a result of the guarantee because across the system it is about €1 billion a year, which is the reduction of the capital in the banks of about €1 billion. The reason I referred to our advice was that if stability were to be restored to the banking sector, it would be better to continue to allow the banks build up capital and become profitable.