Charlie McCreevy (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I estimate that, on average, some 45,000 units per year have been provided for the past five years, including some 50,000 in the past two years. That is enough to meet demand. It will be seen who is correct on this. There is a move to interfere in other areas of the market, but I am loath to do that and I urge caution. It might be popular and might look like the thing to do, but, in this type of market, that is not always the case.

With regard to the price of cattle, my first speech in Dáil Éireann in 1977 was on the setting up of the economic planning and development programme of the former Minister, Mr. Martin O'Donoghue. I spoke about the ludicrous situation which then existed regarding guidance prices. I said that any business system, for making matchboxes or anything else, which guaranteed a set price for a matchbox or other product, no matter how many were produced, must fall on its head.

The final number of SSIA holders is not yet available, but I can inform the House that there are approximately 1.17 million of them. The final figures, which will provide information about the number of people who have invested in equity related accounts, will not be available until the annual reports have been published. However, I have read a document which suggests that the number of such people is between 200,000 and 250,000. Those who invested in special savings accounts that are linked to equities, who comprise between 20% and 25% of the total, took a chance and knew what they were doing. They would be laughing at people who invested in fixed interest accounts if the market had increased. I do not favour compensating those who took a chance and knew what they were doing. The SSIA scheme is quite generous and I have no intention of introducing compensation mechanisms. The scheme was introduced to encourage people to save for five years and they knew when they opened an account they would be penalised if they closed it. Most people decided to open safe and secure ordinary deposit rate accounts, but some of us decided to open the other form of account, knowing that we were depending on the market.