Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

In about September 2003 and we discussed it either towards the end of a Cabinet meeting and it kind of was asked when was I ever going to do this and I had decided myself that I was going to do it when everyone believed I wasn't going to do anything and after four years, it was nearly time to do something. So, we made an agreement between myself and the other members of the Government, right, at that time that I would do it in the following budget on one condition and one condition only: that if there was a hint of a leak from that to budget day about this being done, I wouldn't do it. And that we would negotiate individually with the Minister, on a one-to-one basis and Ministers were not to go back and tell their great advisers or press people or anyone else what we were going to do and if there was one hint we were going to do it ... because at this stage everyone thought we're never going to do it anyway. And what we did was, I did-----