Professor Patrick Honohan:

It is a sort of procedure thing. That is what I would say to undergraduate students to get them interested in a thing but it is very facetious and obviously it is a serious issue in respect of which people are casting around for something which would be robust. I remind the committee that Ireland's debt ratio was very low at that stage and that we had a triple A rating. Everybody thought Ireland was a top country. Of course it was not going to say it would let its banks go rather than say it was in business. It was a natural thing to do, and it was what Merrill Lynch advised the Government at the time, as well the Central Bank.