Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

No, not that I am aware of. This is a legitimate point in the context of how does one know that €7 billion is a good number, is the debt office doing a good job, is that figure efficient or could more be saved. Historically, from looking at some of the old files in the NTMA, and I have only been there 18 months, there was an attempt to get a benchmark against which we would measure performance, but that was abandoned. It is extremely difficult because of the daily moves and the volatile moves. I would make a few points, from which the Deputy can hopefully take some comfort, but I know his job is to look for more than that. We are always challenging ourselves in the NTMA to try to find ways to do things better. We have interactions with other European debt offices with which we are very close. We are very close to the UK debt office and we talk to them about what they are doing, what they are looking at and what new products there might be. In terms of oversight, some of the non-executives on our board have very significant financial market experience and they put us under quite a degree of scrutiny. I can assure the Deputy of that. Notwithstanding that, and if that was not a comfort, if I was seated where the Deputy is, I might ask what might happen if the debt office was not doing a good job and what might be the signals that I would look for. If we issued at an incorrect yield or at an inappropriate price, or too low a price or two high a yield, in an action, we would probably get a headline in the Financial Timesthat day and the financial press would report it. That would the first signal to look for - a failed auction of some description.

The second signal would be if we were taking risk or not financing efficiently, our credit spread investors would start to move our credit spreads to reflect the fact that we were not efficiently managing the debt because that would affect them. The third signal is that the rating agencies would start to comment on the debt management agency's profile, refinancing risk, financing capability and activities in the marketplace. That is where one should look to see whether a debt office like the NTMA, or any other debt office, is potentially optimising the financial conditions and taking advantage of those. For now, the rating agencies do not talk about financing risk. They are comfortable that the average maturity, profile and refinancing risk are appropriate. I believe that is the case. For the moment that is confirmed. If I was looking at the debt management agency as a citizen and a taxpayer, I would be looking at that and to see whether they could be doing a better job.