Mr. David Doyle:

Well, the legislation could have been rapidly turned around, but the option wasn't there. The option wasn't there to burn the bondholders. You had crisis in the money markets; you had panic right across Europe; you had people in the domestic market extremely worried, money being withdrawn; you had the view being taken around Europe that bondholders could not be bailed in, that you couldn't have a bank failure, and that if you had a bank failure, this would cause a most extreme financial and economic crisis in Europe. But, as I said, if ... if the possibility had emerged that you would ... you would make an intervention where you would secure the depositors and have a deferential approach to bondholders, it could ... it could have been rapidly dealt with in the legislation. We had the most amazing Attorney General of all time when it came to drafting legislation, but you would have to consider yourself what would have happened if you had brought in a measure to wipe out bondholders. Now, I can't recall what proportion of the Anglo funds were bondholders. I don't think it was by any means the majority of their funds. But if you had said, "We're going to take on this particular institution, guarantee deposits under the deposit guarantee scheme up to €100k and everyone else will be burned proportionately", there would have been an instant meltdown in the rest of the banks in Ireland, possibly having a domino effect across Europe, given what had happened on Lehman's and the ... the knock-on effect in terms of the domino implications for the Government sovereign market would have been disastrous. The Exchequer would not have been able to go into the market. It did have ... had built up a big cash reserve at the time against the pressures that could emerge in the market. But once that was exhausted, you ... and funds had been withdrawn from it, well, you would have been in severe difficulties.