Mr. Tom O'Connell:

Well, I think the bank's message ... my view was that you should put a gloss on most things, you know, and it goes back to the independence issue again, you know, is a Central Bank ... maybe in a small country like Ireland, while we're legally independent, is the Central Bank actually independent and ... so there was an overall view that you don't call a spade a spade, you know, even if it's staring you in the face. You try to put a gloss on things and that carried over, as I said earlier, to IMF and OECD assessments too. If they were coming up with a negative message, you tried to twist their arms or at least various people tried to twist their arms, to put a gloss on things and not to put a negative picture forward.