Professor John FitzGerald:

The resources to conduct a medium term review are probably €0.25 million and a number of staff would be needed for a year to work on something. It would be less for that because a new model is being developed, Cosmo, which has the best of HERMES - all these acronyms - in the Department of Finance with the co-operation of the Central Bank. I think they are working on a financial sector for that model which would make it particularly suitable. It is a major research project over a number of years and one is talking in terms of major resources. When that model is ready, which I think will be this year, I am not sure whether the financial sector would be integrated into it but that is the tool one would want to use. I would wait until an appropriate tool is ready, but research takes time if it is to be done properly.