Professor John FitzGerald:

Do not blame the model, blame the users, namely, me. My former colleagues in the ESRI are developing a follow-on model which will include most of the key aspects of HERMES and the intention is to have a financial sector sub-model. Although we had a banking model in HERMES, after the data changed completely in 1999 we did not pay much attention to it. The users rather than the model were at fault. A model never produces the right answer. Giving a model to a person who does not understand it is like giving a box of matches to a child. It is dangerous. The model has taken account of X, Y and Z but produces a wrong answer because it has not taken account of the financial sector. A model is a tool. It does not produce an answer. The person using the tool produces the answer.