Professor Patrick Honohan:

You're absolutely right. The big property development loans ... if you think about it, when we say it might be about €40 billion, John Moran may think it's less than €40 billion, the losses ... the NAMA losses there, that €40 billion between the face value and the value NAMA paid, that's the €40 billion. So, if there hadn't been the developer losses, of course, there would been a certain ... a lot of trauma in the banks but we wouldn't have had that big burden. So, in terms of the banking losses, it would have been bearable. We know the credit register is there to provide full information about what the loans are but it should have been visible to everybody. There shouldn't have been this "Oh, Mr. So and So says he's worth €300 million, so we'll take that as part of the collateral. Does he have €300 million, no. We asked him for an audited account and he wouldn't give it us." I mean no ... the banks themselves, they don't need a regulator. The banks themselves won't go in for that nonsense any more but the regulator will be tracking who are the big borrowers, what are you exposed to, what are the risks.