Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

You said twice in your witness statement, Mr. Doyle, that Merrill Lynch, in their evidence ... or in their advice, stated it was "important to stress that at present, liquidity concerns aside, all of the Irish banks are profitable and well capitalised." That was their advice to Government, as such, at the end of September 2008, and you clearly placed some weight on it, because you've quoted it twice, but can I put it to you that, in arriving at that conclusion, what Merrill Lynch did was base it on some information and conversations they had with PwC as regards Anglo Irish Bank, with Goldman Sachs as regards Irish Nationwide, and with very limited verbal information from "the Ministry of Finance", as they put it, and IFSRA, the Financial Regulator - "We have not spoken to the management at any of the Irish banks." So, in arriving at that conclusion, Merrill Lynch had not gone into the banks, they hadn't assessed the records of the banks, the quality of the loans, the quality of the underlying collateral, and they hadn't even spoken to the management of the banks, not to mention ... not to mind, say, examine the underlying documentation. So was that not a rather flimsy basis for advice to Government which formed the basis of a very significant decision?