Professor Patrick Honohan:

Well, I think it did change quite a lot in ... the perception changed quite a lot in the late summer of 2010, so when I came in 2009, I realised that nobody was particularly concerned about Ireland. They were concerned about Greece and they were concerned about other issues, about how they were going to manage this, all of the liquidity and the ... but nobody was saying, "Poor you." I remember Fitch downgraded Ireland and I thought, you know, not surprising at all. Some people were saying, "They downgraded you. I suppose we're all being downgraded." So there was a sense that we were okay. It was kind of ... there were ... things had become pressured, but they were ... we were okay. But it was really the change in attitude in August of 2010 and September, and, in September, we were absolutely in the centre of attention. And I remember one senior colleague saying, "I'm afraid that Greece is Europe's Bear Stearns but Ireland will be Europe's Lehman's." That was in September 2010. So, the view of Ireland had changed dramatically and it had changed dramatically because people had woken up to the scale of the banking losses being incurred by the State and paid for, and the prospective budgetary situation.