Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, I think what was seen at the time was that we were part of a bigger, regional, functioning market now and the whole question of balance of payment deficits didn't have as big an influence on economic thinking than would have been the case when there was a more fragmented economic model in the European Union, because you were seen as part of a bigger picture. It doesn't mean that ... I mean, deficits can be ... you can look at this both ways but some of it is based on the amount of activity that was going on, even in one that's as ... where raw materials are as dominant, in terms of home materials, as outside, imported materials in construction, there was still a lot of importing coming on in that sector, which would explain some of the deficit. But the issue ... I mean, there's been a lot of discussion on it and you're more qualified than I in terms of what the design faults of the euro were and are, and what needs to be addressed. But clearly in the absence of a ... when you have a monetary policy that's based on averages across the Union, which was no longer as homogenous as it was economically before enlargement, we had a situation where those of us on the periphery - not just Ireland, but Portugal and Spain and others, and Greece - were ... found themselves in difficulty when the interest rate, the real interest rate, was too low, if you like, for the amount of demand that there was in the economy for the money in the funds that was being used. But there was nothing we could do about that, so we had to find another mechanism and one of them is the whole question of incomes policy and, as I say, I was using the fiscal policy instrument as a means of avoiding people having to seek higher wage increases by keeping more of their existing funds in their own pocket rather than being taken from them in tax.