Dr. Donal Donovan:

I should say firstly that I have been asked this before. Dr. Mody has spoken on a number of occasions over the past two years. It is very unusual for a recently retired former member of a team that was heavily involved in negotiations, which were still ongoing when he first spoke, to discuss on the public record his views on the decisions that were or were not taken. Having being associated with the IMF for almost 40 years, I cannot recall any such case in my experience. I just wanted to give my personal view, which is that it was quite unprecedented. One can argue about the merits of it, but I thought I should say that to convey how the IMF works. I think I was asked the substantive question asked by the Deputy on a programme yesterday morning. It would not be correct to say that Ireland did not try to negotiate a deal with respect to the famous €20 billion relating to unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders. By all accounts, this was certainly raised and pushed quite hard in November 2010, but it was rejected for good or bad reasons.