Mr. Simon Carswell:

It depends what you are talking about. Much like the debate around whether it was a liquidity or solvency crisis, the focus - I started in The Irish Timesreporting day-to-day on the banks in September 2007. It was all about liquidity at that point. My focus in particular was how exactly banks were funding themselves, how this international crisis was affecting their funding. In the latter part of 2007 and early 2008, did the banks have sub-prime assets on their books? That was the real warning sign - if we saw some of those sub-prime assets on the books of the banks they could potentially be in serious trouble. The crisis evolved and became more about domestic deposits through mid-point in 2008 and as we know with September 2008. The concern about the relationships I speak about in the opening statement did not really figure in my coverage at that point because the focus was very much liquidity. Certainly the questions started being asked. As I mentioned before, in the report in May 2008 the level of interest roll-up, which is a sign of distress - borrowers cannot pay their interest so it rolls up - indicated that it was a risk to the banks. In the middle of 2008 we started wondering how exactly these banks were being affected. Then the liquidity crisis reached a peak with the guarantee and thereafter, in the following two years right up to the present, it is about solvency and the quality of the loans in these institutions.