Mr. Dermot Gleeson:

Firstly, I had two reservations about the compliance standards. The proposal at one stage was that you'd ask directors for details of their personal finances at a level that wasn't being asked in London by the regulator there, and we were competitors for trying to ... one of the big problems getting bankers to be directors of AIB ... you couldn't use Irish bankers, you couldn't use former AIB people, that wouldn't be good governance. You couldn't use Bank of Ireland because they would be bringing Bank of Ireland secrets, so you had to look to the UK. And we thought that having to give a much more detailed account of your personal finances in a way that you wouldn't get asked if you were a bank director in London was a bad idea.

The other reservation, which I ... on one occasion saw misrepresented - I'm all in favour of compliance and people being asked to sign up to compliance ... but I remember once, for instance ... and Chairman, this ... I'll conclude on this ... getting a draft compliance statement which said that the directors would confirm that the bank is in compliance with all statutory regulations and rules. Now, if the stairs in the bank in Ballybofey had a safety feature that they were missing - I just want to answer - I couldn't tell whether everyone was in absolute compliance all the time, no one could.