Mr. Tom Considine:

The public interest is much wider than that. The public interest comprises several dimensions. The first and most important element is a stable system. The State must be able to get out of this mess so that we can get back to normal.

That involves repaying the State, remunerating the debt to the State and making the changes I spoke about earlier and also generating the capital that will be needed to support the lending the State will require if it is to make a full recovery, which I believe it will.

At the sectorial level, there are a number of competing interests. On the one hand is the requirement to repay the State and remunerate the money it has lent us, which is a reasonable expectation for the taxpayer, but this must be balanced with the interest of the people who are in difficulty.