Mr. Liam O'Reilly:

We, as the Financial Regulator, inherited a problem with Bank X. There were corporate governance issues early on, and those corporate governance issues we felt had been resolved by the appointment of a new chairman and two new directors, and as well as that, a chief operating officer. And, unfortunately, within a year - the beginning of 2003 I think it was - the chief operating officer didn't, didn't stay. He gave his ... his reasons at the time as he had personality differences. Also, which we were aware at the time there were continuing corporate governance issues. I suppose, the ... matters came to a head for us in early 2004, with the arrival of a management letter from the auditors of the institution, and concerns that we had as regulators at the time. As a result of that, we instituted a detailed investigation of that institution and we hired a firm of auditors to do that job. As a result of that, a set of proposals came from that institution, and the institution was required to carry out certain tasks. As well as that, I have been hearing in the inquiry here that there have been no sanctions.

In that case, a sanction was applied to that institution and during the following year, we had two sets of audit firms within that trying to rectify the problem. And at the end of my tenure, I thought that progress had been made. Quite obviously, in hindsight, it wasn't enough.