Dr. Tom McDonnell:

The debt level is going in a positive direction. We have a growing population, a falling debt and, broadly speaking, the economy growing year-on-year. One silver lining of a high level of inflation is that it reduces the value of debt. We are still running budgetary surpluses so the net debt is falling and this is all happening at a time the economy is growing quite quickly.

Again, the debt is moving in a positive direction. We have one of the highest levels of debt on a per person basis in the world. We are also one of the richest countries in the world and that means we are better able to manage high levels of debt. We have high levels of debt but we also have high levels of income so we can manage the debt interest repayments that we are required to pay year-on-year.

It is true that the cost of borrowing is moving up. That is partially related to the ECB's tightening of monetary policy, which affects all countries. We have missed that little window of borrowing when interest rates were almost zero. That would have been a better time to borrow than now but Ireland is in a very unusual spot with transitory corporation tax receipts, if indeed they are transitory, to effectively be our borrowing above and beyond what we would normally want to do.

In a sense, the only borrowing we need to do now is to roll over the debt, which is a very good position in which to be. Given this happens over a very long period, we currently have a very low average level of interest payments and it is only over time that those higher interest rates will really start to affect us. Overall, the position is relatively benign as much as these things can be, certainly compared with peer countries. We absolutely have made mistakes in the past. We are very cognisant of that and we urge that we not make mistakes by way of two inflationary budgets, say, or cutting taxes when we know we will have to increase them again in a few years. We worry about that for sure. Overall, however, it would be remiss and wrong of me to say the position is particularly bad at the moment.