In the Dáil debates on the outcome on 7 December 1925, Cosgrave mentioned that the sum due under the Imperial debt had not yet been fixed, but was estimated at £5–19 million annually, the UK having a debt of over £7 billion. The Free State's annual budget was then about £25 million. Cosgrave's aim was to eliminate this amount: "I had only one figure in my mind and that was a huge nought. That was the figure I strove to get, and I got it." Cosgrave also hoped that the large nationalist minority in Northern Ireland would be a bridge between Belfast and Dublin.