Professor Patrick Honohan:

Well, I think that when it arrived it caused a certain amount of puzzlement and Kevin Cardiff implied that. "Why now"? It's as if, you know, the train has already left the station, and there's a message coming to say, "Be sure to catch the train." This had already happened. The wording of the letter in some respects was sharper and more specific than I had imagined. And I actually recall Kevin Cardiff saying, "Look at these terms and conditions exactly." And when you look down through them some of them were not exactly very easy to comply with. On some interpretations ... well, I said to him, "All they want is entry into the programme. Don't worry about those details." So I think that it didn't actually have as much effect as everybody thinks it does.