Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

This relates, Mr. Doyle, to a meeting organised by the Regulator with the main banks and Irish Nationwide, etc., and in page 6, at the bottom half of the page, meeting 5. I'll just take a sentence from that ... two sentences from that paragraph. It says, "The banks [this is a minute of the meeting] ... The banks reiterated that it was not a realistic proposition for either institution [that's AIB or Bank of Ireland] to provide unsecured funding for an entity that had a hole in its balance sheet which would exceed its reserves." And two sentences down, "Both AIB and BoI [Bank of Ireland] independently took the view that the CBI/FR [Financial Regulator] was seriously ruling in the possibility of letting IN [Irish Nationwide] go as a realistic option." And because of time, I'll just go to another piece of evidence, which is Mr. Drumm and this on the same book but it's page 119 and this is a letter from Mr. Drumm to the Financial Regulator in relation to whether Anglo Irish should take control of Irish Nationwide and in page 119, Mr. Drumm says, in a minute or statement, and I repeat:

To publicly undertake to make up any deficit in net assets after the loan book has been realised and all liabilities [...] repaid. That is to say, any losses incurred in realising the loan assets will first be absorbed by member's equity [...] and then if any loss remains, by the Minister.

Is it very clear or not, Mr. Doyle, that all the main players were saying Irish Nationwide is simply insolvent?