Mr. David McWilliams:

The response was that up until now, everything they had been told had been wrong. That is true. They were told there would be a soft landing. That was wrong. They were told the banks were well-capitalised. That was wrong. They had been told prior to that that the Irish economic boom was based on fundamentals and that was wrong too. Eventually, if one consistently gets advice that is wrong, one says, "There is one dude over there who is writing all the time. He seems to have a fairly good handle on it. We'll ring him".