Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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With respect, we still need some technical answers in respect of this fund. Can we get an explanation which sets out the debt impacts, the spending limitations and any other implications which this fund will have? The Chairperson knows as well as I that when the rating agencies come to examine national debt, the gross national debt is the figure many of them use, as do the US markets. The Minister can tell them that we have a given number of billions stashed away but unless he were to use the model of wealth fund Norway or some states in the Middle East and the Far East use, it would not count because it would be, in a certain sense, relatively small potatoes. That is why the National Pensions Reserve Fund just got chopped at the time. The Minister is talking of markets. The markets are very tough. I just do not get the technical explanation. Although I am not putting this forward as a proposition, it would seem that if the Minister's objective is to improve the country's debt position, there is an argument for improving the country's gross debt situation because, in the long run, that will stand to us more in the context of the markets because they will see that debt is on the decline. The Minister can argue, and I would argue, that-----