Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. The reason I ask you that is ... and I reference Vol. 2, AIB, C3b as core documents here, and we're on page 50. In the minutes of the board meeting that was held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, it's reported ... and you reported your interactions with the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator since 7 September. This meeting took place on the 17th, so two days after you report that liquidity pressures increased at that point. You say that there was a systemic need for term debt of up to €15 billion in the Irish market. You go on to say that AIB would breach its regulatory liquidity ratio by the end of October 2008 if market conditions did not ease and term funding became available. It goes on to say Central Bank has been informed of that. The chairperson goes on to indicate that in the absence of a response from the regulators to the systemic funding problem, the matter would be pursued at a political level. The reason I ask you this here is you're making it clear in this board minutes that AIB would have a liquidity problem at October if circumstances didn't change or pressures didn't ease. You've confirmed to the committee that pressures not only didn't easy but actually tightened. So was it the case that AIB was running into a severe liquidity problem?