Professor Patrick Honohan:

I thank Deputy Fleming for those great questions. I like the way they are framing the situation. The Deputy is absolutely correct that the system is very far from what one would imagine to be an open, competitive banking system. We have a system that is not entirely Government-controlled because there are a number of other players. The Government has only a small stake in Bank of Ireland but it would still be there in the background if all the provisions did not prove to be adequate. I do not believe that is where we want to be because it is not healthy. Even in electricity production, there are certain entities that are natural monopolies. They just get so big because of the technology that there cannot be more than one of them.