Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

All right. I just want to deal with one other matter, and if I can get a particular document up on screen there. Professor, this is a letter to yourself of 25 October 2012. The letter is from Minister Noonan and it relates to the Minister for Finance writing to you requesting that you present the Government proposal to the economic management council, EMC, of 8 November 2012, covering the liquidation of IBRC and the replacement of the promissory notes with long-dated Government bonds.

And if I can go to the second page of that, because the second page is where the ask actually is, and it's the very last paragraph there with bullet points. It says, "The ECB agree, as a minimum, to a long-term [this is what they're asking you to go to Europe and talk to the ECB about] weighted average life for Government and Government guaranteed marketable bonds, in line with the proposal." The other ask that they ask you to take to the ECB is, "The ECB agree that the Central Bank of Ireland will affirm to the market that it will hold these bonds to maturity in order to ensure the financial stability of Ireland." And the third ask they're asking you to take to the ECB is that, "The MFI status is retained for IBRC, for technical reasons, post liquidation, until the assets are sold." It concludes, "Absent agreement on these key issues the proposal will not proceed." So these are the key requirements to set up the liquidation of IBRC. Could you outline to the committee this afternoon, the reception this proposal was ... how the ECB received this proposal?