Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

No, I read what Kevin said to the inquiry. I have no recollection of the meeting or the conversation. He said he attended an event at which I was presumably the guest speaker, I'm presuming it took place in Dublin. And I don't know whether ... after the event, whether sitting around and having a cup of tea, whether I asked him ... I told him or he asked me for an opinion. But, so I've no recollection of what I said then. But I would have a clear view as to what I would've been thinking around that particular time.

I was in Brussels as EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services and financial services had come to dominate the latter half of my term there as Commissioner and most of my cabinet would have been Irish members and we would have been reading the Irish newspapers, listening to Irish media outlets and all the debate was going on about Ireland and you certainly, we were very concerned just as Irish people, as to what was happening back home - as anyone would be - and it's probably, members of the committee know, your nationalistic fervour grows exponentially particularly when you're abroad in another country because you don't want other people saying bad things about your country. So there was all this emphasis on Ireland, so, as Kevin said at the .. the thing, and I'd say it's very accurate what he said, I said more or less to him "I think it's time", I probably said "Someone should make a broad statement about the situation." Now that is a long time, that was six months or so away before ever there was-----