Ireland's taxable capacity, which delivers the resources for public service provision, is essentially related to GNP, not GDP. Our GDP is about 20% higher than our GNP whereas there is no real difference between GDP and GNP in other EU member states. In addition, a lot of expenditure is age related – pensions in particular. Other EU member states currently have a far less favourable demographic position than us. On average 16% of other member states' populations are aged 65 plus whereas only 11% of our population is in this age group. This means, for example, that other EU member states have to spend much more to provide the same level of pensions and health services as us. If one takes account of these factors, our spending ratio is much closer to the EU average. Because I have managed our budgetary affairs prudently over the years, we now spend far less on debt service than others – about €1,000 less per household per annum.