Mr. William Beausang:

Going back to my earlier evidence around our work in producing the scoping paper to try to highlight the need for a model of dealing with emergency situations in the financial sector, which would be informed by information from the Financial Regulator. I mean, that was a recognition, in February 2008, that there was ... there was a need for that. But, unfortunately, we weren't successful in putting that in place and ... you know, there would be ... you know, counter, not so much, argument made, that ... well as the bank said at the time, as I quoted a few moments ago, that information gets out of date quickly. You know all kinds of reasons why ... you know, the argument would be made that the type of information that you say you want can never really be generated in ... in ... in real time. And, I mean, you know, given the whole issue around when does a liquidity issue become a solvency issue?

I mean, when you look at the configuration ... when you look at funding markets at that time and you understand the importance of liquidity for asset values, I mean, would you say that any institution anywhere was ... you know, you can make the argument, was it solvent on that night because without any liquidity, there's no value in assets, there's no solvency? And, I mean, what's influential in my view that, you know, that I'm ... I wouldn't be ... in looking at the difficulty that the authorities faced in surfacing that kind of information. I mean, the deep dive that we asked PwC to do and that was done, didn't turn up some can of worms around the institutions, that that really only arose on the basis of the very strict loan-by-loan examination that the European Commission insisted would take place, prior to the transfer of NAMA. So it was only at that point that all the flaws, all the weaknesses, all the issues around the way that loan underwriting had been done in the commercial property sector ... it was only at that point that it really came to light and reflected in the transfer value for the loans at that point in time.