Mr. John Hurley:

The issue was the contagion effect on Anglo Irish Bank on the entire system. Now, since Northern Rock we had been considering the whole question of emergency liquidity assistance. There was a lot of work put into this with every single bank in relation to a liquidity ... emergency liquidity assistance for every bank ... all of the legal arrangements, all of this was done. But we knew in Northern Rock that the extension of emergency liquidity assistance that its becoming public was what led to a run on Northern Rock. It led to guarantees from the British Government later on. So we were in a situation where it was going to be impossible to keep emergency liquidity assistance to Anglo Irish Bank quiet. It was out there in the marketplace that they were in difficulty. The contagion effect from Anglo was very real. And these are risks and you make a judgment on the risk. The risk was that it would have seriously damaged, by contagion, the other banks. They were ... there was already a major draining of liquidity in relation to the other banks. The potential for a collapse of the system was very strong.