Professor Michael McMahon:

We will get the numbers. When we speak about living standards the challenge is that a lot of macroeconomic data looks at averages. Typically when we think about living standards and wages, they have a very long upper right tail. The mean, which is what we reflect in most macroeconomic aggregates, can be quite different from the median. I agree with what Deputy Doherty is saying and I am giving Mr. Conroy time to get the numbers. Certainly for many years, while inflation was running much higher than expected, real wages were falling even on average. Within this there is a distribution of people, and we spoke about this in previous reports, whereby in some sectors of the economy not only have higher earners been higher earners but they have also been able to get wage increases that have been at or above average. If the average is that wages are falling and some people are doing better, there must be some people who are losing out a great deal. I will hand over to Mr. Conroy to give the exact number we have in the report.