Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I return to the issue of the guarantee. In a newspaper article of 28 September 2008, entitled State guarantees can avert depression, Mr. McWilliams discussed the costs of various options that could be taken regarding nationalising banks and stated:

There is another reason for not nationalising, and it is taxpayers' money. Once you start using taxpayers' money, you have to be careful. The lesson from the US in the past week is that using taxpayers' money is unsuccessful and deeply unfair. The beauty of guaranteeing deposits is that you use no money – not a penny.

With the benefit of hindsight, do you believe these comments underestimated the potential cost of the State guarantee?