Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I will try to be brief. I welcome these exchanges. There has been some commentary about the variation between the fiscal council's position on the lack of a credit line on exiting the bailout and the Government's. In fact, it is that dynamic that makes the fiscal council valuable. We need to maintain fiscal sobriety in this debate and dampen down expectations because with talk of exiting the bailout there is almost a daily commentary about when we can roll back some of the austerity measures that have been implemented. It is important that the fiscal council's voice is heard, clearly and critically, and if that involves criticism of Government, so be it. I would think on balance that exiting without a credit line is defensible but that is not where I want to concentrate my questioning.

I will focus on two issues in how the fiscal council evaluated the increased risk without a credit line of not reaching our targets, going from 30% to 50%. One is the proposed repayment by the Bank of Ireland of €1.6 billion of debt to the State. Was that an issue that was in the matrix of the fiscal council's calculations at the time? Is it a relevant factor? They might comment on that.

The other issue, which is on the other side and which might be a jolt to the public finance, is the slowdown in the sale of public assets. We are led to believe, for example, that the sale of Bord Gáis may not now proceed as anticipated. For a start, I ask them to address those two issues, where they may or may not have been the focus of the fiscal council's decision making.