Professor Patrick Honohan:

No, and I will qualify my response. In 2007, I remember being approached by the Central Bank about a project to have a conference. I was asked what the conference should be about and I said it should be on the housing market but it was not sure about the topic. The project was not taken very far.

On 15 June 2008, I remember having a discussion with the then Minister for Finance, Mr. Brian Lenihan, along with a colleague, who was another professor, and I think somebody that the committee will meet later on. We talked about fiscal policy because the big topic was the adjustment of fiscal policy which was going wrong. We did not talk at all about the banks. It might have been earlier than August, say in June, but I could probably find the date.

I wish to make another point. In December of 2008 I was quite concerned. I had made public statements about why one covers subordinated debt. At that stage I really did not have a concept that this was all going to end up as big in terms of tens of billions of euro. I thought it was going to be quite important how the Government handled the recapitalisation. I wondered if it put in €2 billion or €3 billion of capital whether that would make the subordinated debt holders get off free. So I wrote to the Minister, got a response from his office in December and I talked to some of the officials at that time.