 Well, this isn't a crisis. It's a correction. World growth is robust, and the economic fundamentals in the EU are strong. If only those words were true. But actually, this is how EU finance ministers responded on the day that Northern Rock went bust in September 14th, 2007. The time I was covering EU affairs for the Irish Times, and I was in Porto at an informal meeting with Charlie McCreevy was there, all the finance ministers. These sort of EU informals up to then had been pretty much back slapping affairs, you know, very informal, chilled out. Everyone sort of did a bit of hobnobbing, congratulated each other on how strong the European economy was. The only sort of copy I could get in the paper was Charlie McCreevy, who used to rail against the pink goes who were trying to force financial regulation on the markets. So little was I'd know that was going to be a very interesting day in how Europe's economy was going to develop over the next few years. Now, you would have thought that at the site of the first bank run in modern Irish history that the EU finance ministers would have done something or said something dramatic. But I looked at my article last night that I wrote at the time and they said, ministers debated possible regulatory responses to the credit crunch. But there was a consensus that there should be no immediate regulatory response and a period of reflection was necessary. Now, we're pretty dry in the Irish Times as that comes across. But I think, you know, that sort of reflects the lack of action that's happened over the last four years. Finally, there seems to be some action from EU leaders to this economic crisis that is really sweeping through Europe. But I think it remains a real, I think the fiscal compact that was agreed last week or sort of agreed. I don't think that's going to be the answer, to be honest. I think there's going to be more actions required. I think also that the focus on austerity, which Eurozone leaders, particularly Franco German Alliance Germans in particular, are pushing on the peripheral states, it's probably not going to work. It could end up wrecking the EU and certainly it could, as Tom mentioned, really have caused serious problems and damage to the Irish economy. I mean, funnily enough, we are really the poster boy for austerity at the minute in the Eurozone. Everyone's congratulating us on how well we're doing and the fact that our economy came back after three years of recession back into growth this year. Nicholas Sarkozy recently said that we're almost out of the crisis. And I think, you know, the economic growth that we've had this year demonstrates the resilience of Ireland's economy and its export sector. You know, we really do have a great economy here. Pharmaceutical, computer services, they're pretty defensive exports and even in a recession, you know, there's potential to grow them. But that doesn't mean that, you know, that we're going to be able to, you know, keep continue growing next year. I mean, it really does, this export growth sets us apart from the Portuguese and the Greeks and the other pigs, really. You know, we have a dynamic multinational sector. You know, it is a strong economy, Ireland. But, you know, I just think that the fact that, you know, the rest of Europe's in crisis, there's been a minimalist response to the problems across Europe. It's pretty much inevitable now. We'll see a recession in Britain probably spreading across the Eurozone states as well next year. And in that environment, it's really hard to see that Irish exports can continue growing and to, you know, allow the Irish economy to get to the 2.5% economic growth that's required to have the national debt peak at 118%. And whenever you get to that 120% level of GDP, it's really a risky area where people are going to question whether they want to have anything to do with funding your country. So I think that's going to be the crisis that emerges next year towards the end of 2012 when we're looking to refinance. I think that's really going to be very, very difficult to do. It raises the prospect of potentially an emergency budget halfway through the year next year when it looks like we're not going to meet the EU IMF targets. Croke Park Deal, as Tom says, that probably have to come back on the table. You saw Pat Rabbit hinting at that the other day. And, you know, once Croke Park goes back on the table, then you have the potential for social protests, which is the one thing that really Ireland hasn't had, which has been a real positive for the economy. International investors love a stable, conservative-type economy and we might lose that. I'm going over a lot of the ground that Tom did, but really, you know, there is a need for debt relief. Michael Noonan says 15 to 20 billion is what they'd hope to get if we can get somewhere on the Anglo-Promiserie notes. Their forecast to cost about 47 billion over 10 years. It's a massive amount of money. The problem is that really nobody's listening in Europe at the minute. It's pretty much unsurprising because there are other bigger players at risk out there, the Italians, the Spanish. I mean, I've just joined the Financial Times and it's very difficult to get my articles in the very prestigious Eurozone pages at the minute, because, basically, everything's on the Italians and the Spanish and the Germans and the big players. So, you know, the focus just isn't on Ireland. No wonder Andy Kenny struggled to get anywhere with this idea of bringing debt relief to the table last week. Ffint Nautoul was mentioned. He's a great column in the Irish Times today. Irish referendums, the Europeans hate them because we tend to vote no and then vote yes, second time round. But it adds that whole instability thing into European politics. Germans really hate them, actually. But they are a bargaining chip and it's going to be very interesting to see over the next three months how that develops. I think they probably should raise this. I'm sure they're raising it behind closed doors. Talking about if you help us out with the bank debt, we'll try and do everything humanly possible not to have a referendum. I'm sure there's those sorts of discussions going on. My own thinking is that probably there will end up being a referendum because that deal that they did is not going to be an EU deal. It's outside the EU structures. It's a new international agreement. That means Gavin Barrett was on television last night saying they can't use this article in the constitution which allows, gives you greater leverage on EU treaties. And I think the political environment, you've had Fina Foyle coming out today and saying they want a referendum or they think it should happen. That puts a lot of pressure on the government. So I think for those two reasons there's more of a chance of a referendum happening. That could end up being positive for Ireland in that it certainly would add leverage to the whole bank debt relief issue. It also raises real pitfalls and challenges and potential problems for Ireland because it's going to be very difficult to get a yes vote at the minute in this current climate of austerity, especially if the economy even begins to tip even more over the edge early next year. So I think those are the main issues. I mean the loss of Britain on this deal that was agreed last week. That's a pretty big blow for Ireland because they're a key ally in lots of areas during my time in Brussels, the whole justice, immigration, tax, financial services area. We'd be cosying up to the Brits basically allowing them to do the running in EU negotiations and we'd fit in behind and quietly support them. The Brits are going to be well very much undermined I think in EU negotiations going forward now. I mean there is the bigger question about that EU agreement and that is it might not even work for the rest of the Eurozone and that could overtake all these sort of more parochial Irish debates. The ECB has no real sense that it's going to really get out there and solve the debt crisis as a lot of countries are calling for it to do. And even when you go and look at the financial services regulations and the changes they've been making there, the European Banking Authority, is it really getting to grips with the banks across Europe? These stress tests, they're on their fourth or fifth variations of them and there's a lot of political pressures in these organisations and they don't seem to be actually living up to the task that they're given. And that's important because Ireland's debt actually wasn't too bad when it went into this crisis. It was 25% of GDP coming into it which is one of the lowest in the Eurozone. So Ireland's problem was really a banking crisis and I'm not so sure that the new regulations that they're working on in Brussels will actually solve that because you're still going to have national regulation. And true, this fiscal compact seems to be just on the austerity and the debt rather than addressing transfers between member states and the Eurozone in total. So I think there's a lot of weak links there and you could well see a big explosion sometime in the new year and then everything will be up for renegotiation, hopefully the Irish Bank debt.