Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Chair, can I ask that core booklet, Department of Finance, Vol. 1, page 1 would be put up on screen. And this graph, Mr. Cowen, highlights the extraordinary growth in credit during your tenure as Minister for Finance and Peter Nyberg in his final report goes into this in some detail as well, that during the years in question, overall loans doubled from €200 billion to €400 billion. He says from '02 to '08, 80% of all credit growth was property-related, that by 2008, property-related lending reached 60% of the total loan book. He describes 2004 to 2006 as a key period of high growth and that, "net lending to the [C and P] construction and property sector increased at a compound annual rate of almost 45%, enough to treble exposure in this sector over this period". Now, my question, Mr. Cowen, is did you challenge the reports that you were getting and the advice you were getting from the Central Bank, the information in the financial stability report, while highlighting risks was reaching a central scenario, that ... that this would all work out fine? But just looking at that graph and the very steep growth in credit, particularly in property and construction, did you challenge strongly enough the assertion that this would all work out fine?