Professor John McHale:

To add a little to this, we do not have to get to this requirement of 0.5% structural deficit immediately. There is an adjustment path towards it. In the simulations we did we assumed Ireland did the minimum it had to do which was improve the structural balance by 0.5% of GDP per year. It was on this basis, still using the Commissions estimates, that we calculated there would be room for very substantial easing of the austerity measures and allowing, as Mr. Barnes stated, for expenditure to allow Ireland keep up with inflation from 2016. However, matters such as economic growth must work out as anticipated. One of the messages of the report is there is much uncertainty around this. This is very preliminary but we will publish a more in-depth analysis in the next report.