The Minister for External Affairs presents his compliments to His Excellency the American Minister and in reply to His Excellency's Note No. 87 of the 29th January 1948 has the honour to state that Ireland's net drawings from the Sterling Area Pool for payments in the United States dollar area amounted to $33.2 million in 1946 and $87.4 million in 1947. It will, of course, be appreciated that Ireland's net payments in the Western Hemisphere as a whole were considerably greater than these amounts.