Mr. David Duffy:

The Deputy might be referring to a different speech from mine. Given all the leaks today, I am not so sure. However, I will be explicit. Shareholder ownership does not decide how we run the bank. I can tell the Deputy that explicitly and that I would not take the job if that were the case. Let us be clear about that upfront.

The principles which we operated were much more than those based on one's shareholder. They are about the long-term viability of this bank and this country, which starts with two things. A sustainable profitability because one has to be able to generate capital in order to repay the State and to lend. The lending was our biggest obligation on one level.

The second thing we have articulated from the outset is to treat customers fairly. If one does not do so then all of the other issues we have talked about are nonsense. The bank will not be sustainable because one's customers will remember. What we have said from the outset is to keep people in their homes who have distressed mortgages, wherever possible, and protect jobs in the SME world, wherever possible. That is a lot of what we have talked about today. There is no shareholder direction that gives us the answer. If we do not do those two things then two generations of people will have a very negative view of this bank. If we do them well, they will have a very positive view of this bank.

Our whole philosophy is not about whether we are owned or not by one group or another but about that issue.