Mr. William Beausang:

At some stage in ... prior to his departure in 2005 and 2006, and you've ... you've all heard, or in the context of the evidence that you've received, you'll understand the constraints that the Secretary General was under, as a member of the Central Bank board in communicating information back to the Department. But I've a clear recollection of, in Mr. Considine's ... during Mr. Considine's tenure, of being called down to his office with my boss, Mr. O'Gorman, and being told, in very emphatic terms, that the credit unions were the prudential ... the most significant prudential risk that the State was facing at this point in time. And that obviously provided a major impetus for me, in my area, to engage with the Financial Regulator, with the registrar of credit unions, to address the issues that were being brought to the table around credit unions. I suppose, in looking and having ... just very quickly having ... in light of further reviews I've carried out since I ... I submitted my written statement, I mean, I think I might have overstated the extent to which ... I wouldn't want to communicate that work stopped on broader financial stability planning at that time, but certainly work on credit unions took up a huge amount of the ... of my division's time and resources during that period, 2005 and 2006.