Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

Yes. Before NAMA was established, there was an interim board set up, and an interim chief executive, which was Mr. McDonagh. And as I recall it, because he would have been reporting to us at the time, he was in very intensive discussions with the banks even before NAMA was established to see ... to establish the facts about their loan books. So, in a sense, he's much better placed than I to say, and I'm recounting what he told me, but I know that he has afterwards said to Oireachtas committees that the information he got turned out to be incorrect, and in some ways very incorrect, quite a long way away ... quite a long way from the actual position. I don't know whether that was because the banks themselves didn't understand their situation or because what ... I don't know why. But certainly that's what NAMA found as it worked. It, sort of ... it emphasises the wisdom of acting on the basis of a loan-by-loan valuation for all the big loans, even though that loan-by-loan valuation did have the problem of delaying the whole process. It was a much slower way of acting.