Professor Patrick Honohan:

Because ... the ... not agreeing would have led to a much deteriorated situation for the Irish people: tax rates, spending, Government spending would have had to been compressed much more. It was better to take the bird in the hand and sort out the cost later. These ... it isn't ... it's not us versus the ECB or us versus the IMF. They hadn't arrived at a good solution at that stage, but I was confident that fallbacks were better than ... by going ahead than by resisting. And I was right.