Mr. David Duffy:

Senator, I don't think there was a particular timeframe of reference. What I am implying by that comment is that on my arrival, when I met with the regulators, there was some dissatisfaction with our process, our control, the quality of our relationship, our communications. The bank had, during the period prior to my arrival, seen a number of CEOs and new heads, so there was a bit of disarray. There were impending material programmes, such as severance, which were outstanding 16 months at the time of arrival. That level of uncertainty and changing leadership meant that the organisation was not in a sufficiently effective place from a regulatory interaction perspective as regards the regulator's opinion.

Similarly, our shareholder in the Department of Finance in the shareholder management unit did not yet have the confidence on what the strategy would be to recover the bank as we had not obviously had time to explain that so there were concerns about how we would approach that and how effective we could be in delivery. So it was that level of interaction that led to my comment where there was a concern. Did we have the right skills, as I mentioned earlier? Did we have the right leadership? Did we have a strategy that would be agreeable to, and comply with, the requirements of both the regulator and the troika? All of those elements were uncertain at the time. I myself did not know the full extent of the problems until I had spent a bit more time there but those were very clear issues that were relayed to me by the individual stakeholders at the time.