Ms Mary O'Dea:

It was an extremely difficult time. I remember moving from the consumer building was separate. I remember physically going into the 7th floor building in the Central Bank and reflecting on all of the issues that needed to be addressed. Obviously, the key thing was the banks' liquidity and the capital position of the banks. That was the key issue that we were focused on. But as well as that, the organisation itself was in extreme crisis and the people that I was then asked to lead as the chief executive were in an extremely difficult situation. Many of them had worked in the regulator, which was a great of ... great sense of pride and public interest working there and now they were filled with doubt and questioning so ... and at the same time working all of the hours day and night to make sure that they stabilised the situation. So actually I think giving leadership to the organisation to carry out its extremely important role during the crisis period was a key priority of mine. Also, bearing in mind that at that stage I thought I would be in the seat for three months so I was trying to look at it from that point of view ... what could we best do at that stage? And then most particularly there were a number of very specific investigations, the details of which I won't go into for legal reasons, that had to be started and that we had to make sure that we did appropriately and very thoroughly. So there were a number of issues and that's really focusing on the banking side. Remember the organisation is vast and I was also holding the position of consumer director and mortgage arrears were a serious issue for people at that time.