Mr. Michael Tutty:

I will start with the rainy day fund. We would not set a figure for the size of the rainy day fund because we see it as being a countercyclical item. As long as the economy is growing, money would be put into it and, when the economy is not growing so well, money would be taken out, as opposed to us saying €500 million or €1 billion should be put in every year. In the paper we published on our website, we set a certain rate for economic growth - whatever would be viewed as the long-term growth rate of the economy - and then any extra money available would be put into the rainy day fund when the economy is growing quickly. The fund would then build up and when the economy is growing slowly the money could be taken out. We would not set a figure. We would not say that it should be a certain sum and that we should stop there.

In terms of money coming out, the present fiscal rules do not really allow for a rainy day fund to operate. We have put forward proposals in our paper, that would have to be negotiated with the European Commission and with the other member states, as to how this could happen in a way which would regard the money going into the rainy day fund as expenditure at the time we have the fiscal space available to put it in. This would not be the case at the moment as the money is staying in the general government sector. These proposals do not regard the money as expenditure which might breach the expenditure benchmark when it is going out and being spent. I do not want to get into the technicalities here but we think there is an easy way of doing this which we are pretty happy could be negotiated with the Commission and which could also be of interest to the other member states. As I have said, we would not set a figure for it. As long as the boom continues anything above a certain growth level should be put in to be used on the way out.