Ms Mary Burke:

I think, technically, our view on this is it probably wasn't an objective, per se, in law. I think that probably applied to the Central Bank but we obviously had to be conscious of any Central Bank objectives in the manner in which we went about our work. Yes, I think it did. I think it put a huge emphasis ... or a disproportionate emphasis is probably a better way of putting it ... on competitiveness ... on the level playing field. We had the added complications in two respects ... one, we had an International Financial Services Centre, where we were trying to attract in industry. We very much wanted to keep them on the same regulatory regime. There was one regime for banking in Ireland. We also had the difficulty that, under the European provisions regarding freedom of services, certain institutions operated here on a branch basis. And, therefore, in terms of prudential regulation, they were supervised by a different regulator. They were supervised by us for conduct of business but not for prudential. So, if we imposed particular rules or regulations on Irish licensed banks that weren't imposed on the passport ... the branches, then the issue of level playing field and competitiveness immediately raised its head. But it was a ... from looking back at documents - and I have had the dubious pleasure of doing so for coming in here in terms of my research - the term ''competitiveness'' and ''level playing field'' comes up repeatedly. It comes up in IFSRA's own strategy statements, it comes up in industry panel, it comes up in ... even the Minister, when he announced the consolidation ... proposals to consolidate financial services legislation - I think that was in '06 sometime - even that press release talks about how it is important to do so for competitiveness and recognising the ... we have such a large international banking presence here. So it was a repeated theme.