Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Can I just go back and ... Mr. McArdle, you made reference to groupthink. And ... in late 2006, Morgan Kelly wrote a piece in The Irish Timesthat there would be a 50% fall in house prices. Subsequent to that, right ... the AIB, Mr. Beggs around the same time, it's on page 49 of ore documents - Bank Economists. From the unit of which you were head of and you said: ''The Irish Housing Market - They think it's all over ... but it's not''. Mr. McArdle, on page 55 ... you wrote that ... Mr. ... it was from an Irish Timespiece and I quote:

Mr McArdle says he remained confident of a soft landing in the house market. He expects that the "modest fall" in house prices seen recently will continue for the rest of the year.

And Mr. McLaughlin, if I draw you very quickly to page 63, you gave a radio interview on 5 June 2007 ... Mr. McArdle, your piece was on 14 July 2007 ... Mr. McLaughlin, you basically stated that ... you said: ''Mr. McLaughlin said it was "completely ridiculous" to suggest that "suddenly in 2008 that the economy would fall off a cliff''. And you ... prior to that in January, you wrote a similar piece where you did ... it was in finfactsand you ... you basically ... more or less the same thing again, right. And there was one final thing then. On page 77 ... it's in January 2007 a extract from a transcript of a Bank of Ireland business banking debate. Interestingly, you said that:

Some things we're fairly sure are going to happen. United will still be dominant in [the] world football. Christiano Renaldo will be the number one player in the world. But other things are....

more than likely to happen. You said that in five year's time. Well, United are no longer the dominant in world soccer-----