Mr. Pat McArdle:

I suppose I broadly agree with that. Thinking back to the time, as I said earlier, I thought it was solvent. I believed what I heard. I believed that the regulator should know, I mean, they're the ultimate authority with the information ... the only authority, I think, who would have had it. So I certainly believed that, I was sceptical about Anglo from the previous St. Patrick's Day for reasons that are well known. And I remember thinking, what would happen if they had nationalised Anglo that night and thinking "my God it will be chaotic, there will be queues outside the other banks." This was what I thought at the time and I suppose afterwards, I'm not so sure about that any longer. Or it could have been nationalised, as Professor Honohan has spoken about at length here. But the one thing that I would just mention is that Ashoka Mody, who was part of the IMF team that came over here, and I think I have got the right man, when Anglo was eventually nationalised the following January, in the middle of January if I recall correctly, he wrote an article that said that all of the trouble in Europe started with that decision. So, you know, it was never going to be an easy decision is the point I am making. If you ... and if you had raised the flag... the flag about Irish banks on the night in question or even the following week, there would have been fallout. We'll never know what it would have been. But all things considered, I probably agree with Professor Honohan's first conclusion on this, which is the one in his report, which said that a substantial guarantee on the night was necessary.