Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Cowen, in late 2008 to early 2009, in your view, did the guarantee decision stop working in terms of giving Irish banks the sufficient access to non-ECB liquidity? And the reason I point this out is on page 4 of the evidence book on, sorry, on page 3 of the evidence books, Vol. 5, there is a note there which clearly states that - and this is on ... this is in March 2009, just a number of months after the guarantee decision to provide the liquidity. It says that:

At present Irish banks face an extremely unstable outlook. In recent times they have experienced major withdrawals of deposits and established credit lines leading to substantial recourse to the Central Bank for short-term liquidity support. This is not a sustainable trend and if it persists would be expected to lead to a serious systemic issue for the Irish banking system over the coming weeks.

This is within months of the Government bringing in a guarantee with contingent liabilities of €440 billion on the Irish State to provide exactly liquidity but this note from the Department of Finance is saying it's no longer working.