Professor Patrick Honohan:

I think leaking ... the knowledge I have and probably the Department of Finance have better sources of information about things, but the knowledge I have from people who came are that they heard maybe one or two individual senior staff members suggesting that Ireland was, you know, in a bad situation, wasn't going anywhere. That's not exactly leaking, briefing more, which I ... and I don't believe it was a co-ordinated policy by some shadowy people at the ECB who had decided to do this.

I think it was carelessness and imprudence.