Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is along the lines of where Deputy Higgins was going with his questioning. When Professor Honohan came before us in January, he was asked directly what the bank guarantee cost. He initially said €40 billion and when I contributed I asked him if he meant that this was the cost of the guarantee or the cost of rescuing the banks. Professor Honohan thanked me for correcting him, as he put it. I did not mean to correct him but that is how he put it. Given that today he has put a figure on it and said that between 80% and 90% of the costs were there anyway, irrespective of that decision, would he now care to put a figure on what the additional costs of the decision to guarantee the banks at the end of September 2008 was, as opposed to the costs that would have been involved in another scenario which he might have preferred?