Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I want to move on there to another issue, and that is to deal with the financial stability issue and the scoping paper citing, this comes back to Department of Finance, Vol. 2, page 113 to 120.

The specific page I am talking about is going to come up on screen now. It talks about, if you look at the second paragraph there going down on the page. It says this memo sets out ... the memo is actually a memorandum from Merrill Lynch, Sunday 28 September:

This memo sets out the strategic options available on the Government. There is no right or wrong answer and the situation is very fluid with financial institutions experiencing difficulty and being supported by governments on a daily basis. Preserving flexibility is key and the solution may be different for each institution. The important issue is for the Government to preserve the stability of the Irish financial system overall and to safeguard the interests of individual bank customers to avoid widespread panic. That said, there is a limit on the financial resources available to the Government and there may be a need to preserve firepower as events unfold. The implications for each option in terms of whatever constitutes State Aid also needs to be carefully considered.

Could I ask you what discussions took place that you were a party to on this potential systemic risk?