Professor Gregory Connor:

I am talking about the AGM and the feedback from shareholders to the board of directors. The board of directors is responsible to the shareholders; the shareholders clearly wanted more of this and questioned why their bank was not growing the way Anglo Irish Bank was growing. That is the claim, obviously partly to diffuse the blame. I know from speaking to managers that they were under a lot of pressure, both internally and from shareholders, to follow Anglo Irish Bank. Until it collapsed, Anglo Irish Bank's stock price had increased spectacularly, and shareholders believed that they were lagging and that their share price should do the same.