Professor Alan Ahearne:

I have an open mind on it. Like the committee members I am listening to all the witnesses and I would rather wait until they have all come in and all the information is gathered before I make a decision. It is complicated. I said at the time that it was important not to let the banks go into a disorderly failure. It was important that people did not walk into an Irish bank next morning to withdraw money only to be told there was no money. That would have been chaotic. That is a disorderly failure. The Government was absolutely right to make sure that did not happen. I mentioned how important it was to safeguard deposits. A few weeks earlier there was some panic around and people saying on radio programmes that they were withdrawing money. I had written an article saying that people should not panic, deposits would be safe, that I was sure the Government would do everything to protect deposits.

I did raise the issue of subordinated debt in that article. I was puzzled as to why it was included. That does not mean there was not a good reason but only that I could not think of one. That might have been my problem. I said it would probably prove controversial.