Mr. Brian Cowen:

The question is, the question is were they responsible targets? And they were responsible targets at the time. In fact, the outturns were more positive than the targets that we set. I set for modest annual deficits, we came with surpluses - 1.2% in '05, '06, 1.1% in '07. They were surpluses, in other words, even allowing for what people were predicting would be revenues, they were stronger than that. And some of the revenues, yes, did go towards wider social and economic inclusion issues. I mean, I ... I respect Department officials, they have a job to do. We're there as the democratic Government and we have to address needs and we have to make political decisions, policy decisions, about what we think is the right thing to do. Now none of the ... nor would you expect them to, none of the strategies set out by the Department of Finance had made any provision for child care initiatives, for example. Did we need ... did we need to address that issue as a matter of urgency? I believe we did, we had 300,000 more females participating in the labour market over in the previous ... over that period of ten years. Secondly, there was no provision at the time when I was Minister for Finance, that we'd have a four-year disability initiative.