Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

These are estimates and they are ball-park figures. The Deputy can be absolutely assured that in our discussions, both with our international funders and the ECB, in particular, these matters are being kept under review.

However, I would be unwise to speculate either as to the range of that or the total liability concerned at this stage, because even if we were to be successful in the redesign of the promissory note, there are a number of areas that must be considered. One does not want a situation where a redesign in the long run would be more difficult for us by virtue of the fact of changing interest rates. Those are the kind of issues that must be sorted.

However, I accept what Deputy Pearse Doherty is saying. There is a necessity to make progress on this and that is what we are working hard to achieve.

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