Mr. Ed Mulhall:

His core message, which I tried to describe earlier on, was a very measured message and I did not find it in any way improper. Because of his training, the Minister was very careful in what he said. I do not want to paraphrase him inaccurately because I did not take a note of what he said. He had concerns about the banking sector and he believed that what had developed in the "Liveline" programme would cause problems for the banks and that there needed to be some balance put into the issue. That was a developing story that day. Two of our correspondents were aware of what had happened on "Liveline" and had checked it out with a number of the institutions involved. So there was a real concern around the story. In terms of the story we did at 6 p.m. that day, we were quite careful in terms of how we phrased it. The Minister and I then had an exchange during which I said that there were a number of people who could be interviewed about it.