Accordingly the risk was high that, at the end of the three years of the programme, the indebtedness of the Government, taking account also of the servicing costs of that indebtedness, would be too high for the government to have access to the market at any reasonable terms, and would give rise to the need for a second programme and a prolonged period of uncertainty.
So why then did Ireland agree to enter the Programme? First, because despite these shortcomings, it nevertheless offered the least painful path for fiscal adjustment: that is, the  1  Who placed on record that it was “difficult to state categorically” that government debt would, “with a high probability”, “be reduced to sustainable levels in the medium-run”.