Vol. 426 No. 6
77 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Finance the additional foreign borrowing which was obtained as a result of the decision not to devalue between 1 September 1992 and 31 January 1993 by the Exchequer, the Central Bank and the National Treasury Management Agency; and the additional cost of the repayment of such foreign borrowing arising from the devaluation.
The question is a purely hypothetical one to which no real answer can be given. It is impossible to quantify what the level of foreign currency borrowing would have been between 1 September 1992 and 31 January 1993 if the Irish pound had been devalued earlier than it was. The impact of such a devaluation on foreign currency borrowing would have depended crucially on the subsequent reaction of interest rates and exchange rates. No one knows what would have happened to interest rates and exchange rates had we decided to devalue earlier than we did. Therefore there is no basis for any quantified reply.
