Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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No. We are in the month of May. It will depend on from when this will be effective. The figure of seven will be on the table as a proposal. We are looking for something extra but there are always numbers like that over and back. Only ten days ago, the Central Bank notified us that it had extra excess profits and that instead of giving us something over €1 billion, there is about another €120 million or €125 million. There are pluses and minuses in the budget over the year. We keep a general eye on it but it is not that precise that one would be too concerned about it because of the pluses and minuses in it.

On the question of stress testing, Government policy is to align our obligations in this regard as closely as possible with the general stress testing of the European banking system. Two stress-testing exercises will be undertaken in Europe next year. In January the European Central Bank will commence an assessment of the values or asset quality of Europe banks, while later in the year the European Banking Authority will also carry out a stress-testing exercise. The date of the latter undertaking is not yet fixed.