Professor Gregory Connor:

That was Ireland's hidden borrowing. Greece had hidden borrowing. It had worked out ways to rewrite its national income accounts to hide borrowing and it worked with investment bankers to hide the debt issuance. Ireland's hidden borrowing was through its domestic banking system. When macro-economists like Professor John FitzGerald from the ESRI say they missed the problems, they did so because when they worked through the fiscal accounts there did not appear to be a lot of borrowing but they missed the 88% of GDP coming in as hidden borrowing through the banking system. We are on the hook for that. It was difficult politically but it was a mistake.