Mr. John McCarthy:

Another issue is always arising in troika discussions. In terms of modelling investments, in the long run we typically look at investment to GDP ratio or, in other words, overall investment relative to economy-wide activity. For an advanced economy and a euro area country, the norm is an investment to GDP ratio of 18% or 19%. In Ireland's case, it is 10%, which is abnormally low and at some stage it must normalise. A rapid normalisation is not built into our medium-term projections because we would have to build in 15% or 20% growth in investment, which is not plausible. There is some upside risk to the investment component over the medium term, although maybe not next year. The original question is pertinent as the figure jumps out. The law of small numbers explains it.