Dr. Dan McLaughlin:

In other jurisdictions, there is a clear lender of last resort. So in the United States, it's the Federal Reserve. In the UK, it's the Bank of England. One of the issues probably which I think is not covered sufficiently is it was not clear, and it is still to some degree not clear, is the ECB the lender of last resort in the eurozone? And I think, had there been much clearer lender of last resort, and now of course we have, in theory we have one ... well the ECB is the regulator of the Irish banks ... the main Irish banks. We also have a resolution process in existence, none of that existed, but I do think had there been a much clearer idea of who was the lender of last resort, it might have been slightly different. But, you know, that's hindsight.