Mr. Tom Considine:

Well, I suppose, you know, as the Department of Finance, I mean, I would always have seen it as my job, you know, to make sure that Ireland was competitive in every sector and the financial sector wouldn't be any different from that. In my mind, like, there was no issue there between that and regulation, you know, sound ... in fact, I would have the view that if you engaged in sort of dangerous regulatory practices that you would probably suffer in terms of, you know, your business, as opposed to anything else. But, listening to some of the people that gave evidence to this committee, I could see that, down the line, that message may ... you know, it may have come across differently. There's always that risk that, you know, you ... you give out a message and the people who are giving it out maybe understand it, hopefully, but when it gets translated down several steps ... I heard what they said and I have no reason to believe that it's not right.