Ms Geraldine Kennedy:

His title was "finance correspondent" but, as it happened, he was spending all of his time reporting on the banks, and obviously doing it very well because he was the journalistic specialist that the committee called in here to address it on the issue. He did have concerns. What is interesting as well is that, because he wanted to investigate it further, I freed him up from other markings. He got a paid leave of absence to write the books that he spoke to the committee about and all that. It was a very worthwhile use of resources by The Irish Times.