Professor Philip Lane:

The committee will have to put that question to the Department. The CSO is going to report mid-summer, so it is something that could be used as an input by autumn. There are two ways to think about it. One would be to start talking about ratios to GNI*. The other way to approach it would be to still use ratio to GDP but use a different target. For example, last year, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, indicated that it might be a better target for the debt-to-GDP ratio should be 45% rather than 60%. That would be another way to approach it. In other words, given that the GDP numbers may be too high, perhaps we should use a lower ratio.

To that extent it is already embedded by arguing that the target debt ratio is lower than the typical European 60% target.