Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I thank the Deputy. I will ask Dr. Cassidy to pick up the capital plan questions. All I will say on that is I am not only worried about the size of spend. I am also worried about how it is spent. However, I will leave that to Dr. Cassidy to talk about.

On the wrong measures, to answer that question first, the wrong measure to tackle inflation today would be to raise interest rates today. That would be top of the list of wrong measures. Raising interest rates today would have a negative effect on the recovery and it would lead to job losses and business failures. It would put the whole of the recovery at risk. That would be the wrong thing to do today in response to what we are seeing.

On raising interest rates, to turn to the Deputy's question about the tools if we saw inflation persisting, raising interest rates is the biggest part of our toolkit. However, if we were faced with that sort of decision what we would probably do - certainly, what I would want us to do, and this is for discussion with all my colleagues at the ECB - is reduce our asset purchase programme first before we raised interest rates. Fundamentally, it would have a similar effect of tightening policy and having a direct impact on demand.

Someone used the word "stagflation" earlier in one of the questions and I did not respond to that directly. We are not in the stagflation situation that we were in the 1970s. There is genuine growth happening, both in Ireland and in Europe and around the world. It may be slightly dampened in the near term because of the re-emergence of restrictions, etc., but there is real growth. In the 1970s, the "stag" bit reflected stagnation and we are not in a stagnation sort of world right now. We have the tools to deal with inflation.

I completely understand Deputy Aindrias Moynihan's point on housing and rents and deposits. It is one of the questions we are considering in our review of the mortgage measures framework which will not be concluded until next year but I am aware of it. Fundamentally, we are not trying to stop people from being in a position to put a deposit down. What we are trying to prevent, as I stated earlier, is reckless lending and borrowing, but how the rules interact with supply being constrained and rental prices as they are is something I absolutely recognise. It is an issue. One of the answers I can give to the Deputy's direct question is that banks or lenders have the flexibility today to consider the reliability of the borrower. If they have a track record that they have been paying X amount in rent, banks have the flexibility to take that into account in their decision-making and to use the flexibility they have to lend above the restrictions as part of that. Leaving that aside, I completely understand the Deputy's point. That is an issue that we are thinking about very carefully.