Mr. John Hurley:

There were a number of meetings with ... I think I went over to Government Buildings probably around 6.30 p.m. ... around that time, and there would have been ... I'm not sure when the meeting proper started, chaired by the Taoiseach and with the Minister for Finance, but some time later, and there would have been at that stage about ... maybe about 7 o'clock, what I would describe as the first plenary session chaired by the Taoiseach.

And that particular meeting started with a detailed discussion on the liquidity position, on the threats facing the system, how the individual banks were. I would have given a broad view on the situation as we knew it. We had very good information and the Financial Regulator ... and the chairman of the Financial Regulator would have gone on in detail about individual banks. All of this information would have been supplied and sent to the Department of Finance in the course of the day. There would've been a lot of contact during that day because the liquidity position changed as and from the beginning of that morning on the 29th. At the weekend, we had a view that we would probably get through the following week. That changed on Monday and we knew that we were in a critical situation ... we knew for a start that one bank would be illiquid unless we did something that particular day but the contagion effect and the implications for the other banks would have been enormously serious. So at the meeting, we outlined all of this ... the Department of Finance would already have had the data ... I think the Minister and the Taoiseach probably were up to speed but we gave the up-to-date information, as we saw it, because things had been evolving on an hourly basis on the course of the day.