Mr. John McDonnell:

I think, Senator, in the context of the audit rules and the rules that were applicable to allow us to formulate an opinion, I think the rules that were in place were appropriate for the time, and I think the substance of those rules is still in place in the canon of accounting standards. I would say that we stand over the audit opinions on Bank of Ireland, we did a very robust and thorough audit, and we are satisfied that those opinions were appropriate.

The main changes, though, in auditing standards since the crisis have been predominantly focused in on the role of the auditor and the role of management, and trying to strengthen an understanding in the marketplace as to what an auditor does and what an auditor doesn't do, and what management do and what management do not do, and the interaction between the two. And what we've seen is, we have seen a development - for an example, Senator - we've seen a development in the audit report, whereas the audit report previously would have been a two-page report, now it's about a six-page report. Previously we would've just, effectively, said what our responsibility is and what our opinion was; now we will specify how we, how we determined the focus of our audit, so, in other words, what entities were in scope and what were not in scope, what was the materiality that we would have applied to our audit, and what were the key areas of audit focus, so, in other words, the significant risk and, clearly, impairment would have been one of them, and what tests we undertook to audit those areas of focus, and then how that brought us to our opinion. So it's much more discursive around the opinion, and the second part of the change was that management through ... the directors, through the auspices of the audit committee, would outline what they considered were the significant issues that they took into account in the context of the finalisation of the financial statements, and how they interacted with the auditors in that regard. And, lastly, the directors would then say why they believed the accounts were fair, balanced and understandable. All that was being done in the past; it is just now more, it is communicated in a more detailed manner to the marketplace.