Mr. Paul Maloney:

Deputy O'Donnell, if you are asking me with hindsight of just the docklands role, I would not do anything differently. However, if you are asking me with hindsight that when I read the ESRI reports, the Central Banks reports, the governance reports, the economic reports of 2006 - just look at them, not one of those national and international reports were giving me an indication of what was going to happen - so if you are asking me with the hindsight of that would I have done it, of course, not. With hindsight, though - and I answer as honestly as I can on the role I played for which I take full accountability and responsibility - I do not think there is something I did in those 20 days that I would have done differently. I do not believe that because we mitigated our risk with the four factors that I alluded to.

At no stage, and right up to today, did we ever use a cent of taxpayers’ money in paying off all of that. I am comfortable with that decision. I hugely regret the outcome because of the imploding of the Irish economy and the property market but, on the specific question as to whether I would have done something different in those 20 days, the answer is that I absolutely would not, considering the knowledge I had then. Would I have done something different with the benefit of the hindsight I have now? I would have stopped everything.