Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet:

Again, we have to be very clear. You have your own responsibility and each institution should ... and I know that a number of questions are also very concentrating on were you over and above your own responsibilities. Our own responsibilities were at the time very clear. We were responsible for monitory stability in the euro area, the treaty the primary mandate, and, again, without deflation, without inflation. Beyond that responsibility, we observed that the Stability and Growth Pact was not respected. We made the point extraordinarily clear several times that this was absolutely necessary, in our view, for the cohesion of the euro area. Beyond our primary mandate, we could see that nobody was surveying the evolution of competitiveness. We made the point since '05 at each meeting of the Eurogroup, every month, that some countries were losing their competitiveness. Ireland was part of the countries that were losing their competitiveness. All the figures were circulated every month to the governments. Again, we had no responsibility. It was clearly to the governments, to the Commission in some respect, to look at that, but we point to the figure.

As regards from a more general standpoint, the final, short stability issue at the time, where we had no particular responsibility in this domain, we made public remarks regularly on ... I would say both at a global level and at a European level. We considered, right or wrong, but it was strictly our own responsibility, that we had no responsibility in banking surveillance in Ireland; that it was the responsibility of the national authorities, and the national authorities - I'm not saying that in Ireland particularly - but all over the euro area were very, very keen in saying, "It is our responsibility" and I don't, you know, criticise them from that. It was the implementation of the system as it was at the time. It was not a good system and that's the reason why it has been totally changed.