Mr. Paul Dobey:

The first thing to say is I don't believe that AIB senior management held a view that the accounts reflecting IAS 39 didn't give a true and fair view, and that's very important to me because the primary responsibility for the true and fair view, given by the accounts, rests with the directors. And indeed, the directors, including the chairman, and the directors, signed the financial statements and approved them in the belief, I believe, that they gave a true and fair view. So, the first part of your question, I don't believe that the application of IFRS negated the true and fair view. In actual fact I believe the true and fair view was informed by IFRS, and our opinions state that the accounts give a true and fair view in accordance with IFRS, which is an explanation of what the true and fair view is. The true and fair view must be informed by some rules because, your true and fair view and my true and fair view ... they'd be a different true and fair view by individuals, it's a pretty broad term. So it's ... it's explained by reference to accounting standards. So that's the first and very important, point. And ... and if I believed that AIB were saying that they didn't believe the accounts gave ... gave a true and fair view that would be something, that would be significant. I don't believe that's the case. I'm aware, though, of the views of AIB in relation to IFRS, and I was aware at the time. There was an extensive dialogue in AIB around the application of IFRS. One of the issues in IFRS ... the reason why IAS 39 was introduced in relation to loan loss provision was to stop income smoothing. And there was a very significant debate around income smoothing in, in the US actually, in 1998, when chairman Levitt of the SEC outlawed earnings management. And there was a very significant dialogue between the SEC and the Fed in the US, that went on for ... for three years until it eventually resolved in 2001, what, yes, 2001, that the incurred loss model prevailed. And the issue here was, that the Federal Reserve, like regulators, for example, would like to have significant buffers in their general provisions, by general provisions to enable banks, maybe, to report less volatile earnings. The Fed might like that there would be more buffers and provisions to smooth earnings, because that encouraged confidence, it avoided volatility. What the SEC were very focused on was to make sure there wasn't earnings management.