Mr. Paul Maloney:

In the city council, as the Deputy knows, one reports to a board of councillors. The authority was now a formal semi-State board with DoE representation. It was the first time I had come across this.

As regards the Deputy's very valid point, in a risk analysis - a SWOT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, analsysis - that we presented probably on 3 October but certainly on the 20th we identified one of the risks. We did not say this was a definitive statement that the property market had overheated and that was it. It was one of the risks we were taking. When we saw that risk, a definite risk, there were two ways of dealing with it. One was not to take part and the second was to mitigate one's risk. If one looks at the four measures since that statement which I now recall was on 3 October in the minutes, we were taking 49% or 50% of the site. I mitigated that risk of a property market in four ways and to this day I stand over this. Why? We had made €52 million profit in that year, 2005. We were entering an agreement at 50%; we could not do this if it was an overheated property market. What I had to ascertain with my team was how to draw down the risk in order that if the property market changed, we would be protected. By reducing our borrowing to €53 million, as it ultimately became, we were clearly within all the parameters of our ability to pay, without going near taxpayers.

The second mitigation was we said the gearing was too high. They wanted 90%, but we said, "No. Get your equity in there. Take it away from the banks and we want it at 70%."

The third mitigation was we wanted to have a cap on recourse. I believe this forced the banks to reduce it to only €100 million. In the case of a €290 million loan, that was unheard of.

The fourth mitigation was we wanted to ensure our valuations were at the limit to which the authority would go, which was €307 million. Between the 3rd - the statement - and 20th we had mitigated the risk as one would do in a SWOT analysis. I believe if one looks at the figures, notwithstanding the collapse of the financial system and so on and NAMA, had we gone with a loan with Ulster Bank, for example, or RBS, which was the intention at the time - if the Deputy recalls, the first bank approached by Becbay was Ulster Bank or RBS - we would not have had further recourse to the taxpayer. The recourse figure on the site was €100 million, of which we were liable for 26%. All of this was within our ability to deliver.