Mr. Michael Torpey:

Senator, the funding strategy of Ulster Bank Group was influenced fundamentally by the fact that there was an assurance on the provision of funding from its parent, RBS Group. In that context the key consideration for me will have been the stability of the funding, the level of assurance that I had that funding would be replaced upon maturity. The objective in running Ulster Bank was to grow the business in Ireland, including the retail deposit base, to the extent that we could, certainly to put us into a proper, full scale, competitive position against the major banks, and the residual funding requirement, which was always going to be quite substantial for a challenger bank in a growth phase ... the critical thing was to ensure that that was stable funding, and the combination of term debt that was approved by RBS, and the provision of funding and the assurance of the continuing provision of such funding by RBS Group, were sufficient to give that assurance of stable funding. The ... it's ... as you point out, as events progressed through 2008 and the international liquidity crisis and the developing domestic situation happened, the shape of that funding moved towards shorter term maturities, but even though I wasn't there I think it's reassuring to see that the RBS Group ultimately stood by those assurances upon which I had relied while I was there.