Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

But who was proved correct about the SSIAs? I think I was because the amount of money that was put into the SSIAs accounts, it gave a nest egg for ordinary ... ordinary decent people such as you represent in Carlow-Kilkenny and Deputy Higgins represents in Dublin. To go into an SSIA, all you had to do was €10 per month ... per month, which wasn't a pint of stout per week extra and people participated because they saw it as a simple, good scheme. And that applies from Mulhuddart all the way to Graiguenamanagh and all the way to Letterkenny as well. And it worked out well and people appreciated it more than any other issue that was done over the last 15 years - ordinary people. I don't actually expect that most of the big financiers were ... actually participated in the SSIAs but the ordinary Joe Soap and Mary Jones definitely did.