Professor Patrick Honohan:

I was consulted but ... I mean, I was shown. He didn't say, "What do you think of it?" He said, "I'll show you as a matter of courtesy", something like that. And I didn't give an opinion on it. It was just a ramping up of things. The markets had lost confidence on Ireland by the middle of November. The spreads were up, that was my indication that I was looking at. I think probably other senior ... we know about the meeting in Seoul in the margins of the G20 meeting, again it was a G7 meeting and I think following that, Trichet had the sense that there was a general sentiment that there is going to trouble, it has to be lanced.