Mr. John Moran:

I was asked earlier about my views on the various banks. I have indicated that we see these banks as effectively following each other through a path. If I were being asked this question about Bank of Ireland, nobody would doubt its position on raising capital at the moment. AIB is a little behind. I think AIB could raise capital at the moment if it wanted to; it is a question of price. Our management of the AIB shareholding for the State does not involve our asking whether we need to sell the shares but asking whether we have prepared the asset that we ultimately want to sell in the best way so as to maximise the shareholding value of the State. If, after the stress test, the bank requires capital - I do not know whether that will be the case - and it is to be raised from the outside markets, we will have to ascertain whether the investors would put a value on the asset that we are essentially selling by allowing ourselves to be diluted because we are not chasing 99.99% of the offering. We would have to ask whether we believed we had the asset at a point that resulted in the maximum value for the State or whether we believed it was better for us to be the investor in terms of the bank - in other words, to continue to hold the dominant share because the asset would look better in the future.