Mr. Marco Buti:

We used the best tools available at the time. When one assesses the potential growth of the economy, which is necessary to compute the so-called output gap, one must consider the capital endowment of the economy, the position regarding labour force development, demographic issues and productivity levels. To be fair, it is very difficult to assess what is the potential growth rate for a country such as Ireland. It is much easier to assess large, more stable economies than it is to examine the position of small, very open economies which are subject to large external shocks. In objective terms, it was very difficult to do the job in question.

This is not to excuse the fact that, in retrospect, we can see Ireland's growth model was unsustainable.