Mr. John McCarthy:

I think the Deputy is correct, there were about 80,000 gross outflows and something like 70,000 gross inflows, making for net outward migration of 11,000 allowing for rounding. That applied to April, which is the time the CSO compiles its annual population estimates. We are forecasting net inward migration, we are forecasting a very modest increase for next year. It come back to Deputy Rabbitte's question earlier as to why unemployment is not falling more rapidly. He mentioned July, August and September. The reason is that there is a labour supply increase. One of the reason for the labour supply increase is probably inward migration at this stage and the second is the participation rate , which tends to be cyclical for various reasons. Probably in the short term we will move into net inward migration.