Professor Patrick Honohan:

It is probably over-simplifying it to ask "was the collateral there?". I would refer the Deputy to the examples from 2007, late in the day, of the multiple relationships between the five big developers and the five big banks and the way in which it turned out that the banks - and unfortunately the auditors because if they had known then the banks would have known - did not realise how much the other banks had lent to these particular borrowers and therefore would be able to claim some of their unpledged assets. The total picture of the security of the loans had not been seen by the auditors in those cases.