Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The professor stated that the reason is we have gone into this recessionary period with our public finances in a completely different position from where they had been. People are concerned, however, even though it has given us a platform to borrow to be able to fund the sort of expenditure we need, both in terms of ongoing weekly payments and the sort of stimulus plan that the professor is talking about, which is envisaged by the incoming Government to be delivered in July, and we will come back to that.

On the level of borrowing and where we are with interest rates, how long can we borrow before we get to the point of a threat to credibility? In NTMA papers from 2014, one can see how catastrophic the bond yield position was in 2010 and 2011, arising from all the uncertainty about the then Government generally, default and the general position of our credibility on the international markets. I do not think we will get back to that point, fortunately, but there has to come a point at which we cannot continue to borrow credibly without showing we will be able to correct it. What is the professor's sense of that?