Mr. Richie Boucher:

I don't really know, Deputy. I mean, what I go through is the process as to why I'm in my job is I stood before the shareholders every year, the shareholders voted in 2009, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14 and '15, every year as to whether I stay in my job. I've been under very significant regulatory scrutiny. I'm one of the few people that has had a ... I had a six-month investigation of my role in the crisis and my doing my job, that was done by an independent third party on behalf of the regulator. The regulator wrote to me afterwards, as I've disclosed to the committee, thanking me for my sense of responsibility and my engagement with the Central Bank, notwithstanding that I was going through this third-party process.

I focus on my job, to do my job to the best of my ability. I've had a huge focus on repaying the taxpayers. We in Bank of Ireland should never have got our position where we needed taxpayer support. It was wrong and a huge driving factor by me has been a recognition I was a member of a management team that made mistakes, made bad judgments that cost people money and I've had a huge focus on trying to rectify that.

I believe that we have made a lot of progress in doing that. But I don't know whether it's my personality, or my experience, or whatever. What I've tried to describe is the process as to why I moved from my role to where I am today and the scrutiny I've been under. I've also had huge scrutiny from the investors and the private sector investors that I persuaded to believe in Ireland and to believe in the recovery of the bank, the capital we've raised on that and a very, very significant question from the investors who were putting up new cash was an understanding of my role in the mistakes we'd made and what I was going to do to fix them and how I'd make money in so doing.