Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

The bailout happened because the scale of our economic and fiscal difficulties, which were not caused by but seriously exasperated by our banking difficulties. And the real issue was the cost within the banks, the cost of losses within the banks rather than the guarantee itself. We could've designed the guarantee differently in the ways that Professor Honohan has talked about, to make it more possible within Irish circumstances to burn bondholders earlier, especially to burn the senior bondholders earlier. But from a policy point of view, and especially about what we learned later about the European reaction, that might not have been practically possible. So, one could only speculate, Chairman, one might have, you know ... one might have saved a small number of billions here and there according to Professor Honohan, I'm sure he's right, but you might not have, and then would a small number of billions made it difficult ... made a difference to whether we went into the bailout or not. Probably not. But every ... but you have to assume that everything else being equal over a period of years where they might not have been.