Mr. Brian Cowen:

No, I think you believe in the people's professional integrity. I mean, you appoint people in this situation in an emergency ... Mr. Bacon had, apart from any private directorships he currently had when he left the public service, or whatever, he had a long record of involvement in these sort of issues and an expertise that might be helpful. You know, I think you have to believe in, you've got to ... you can't allow all the time the suggestion to emanate that because you had an involvement in X disqualifies you from dealing with something in that general area. I mean, the quality ... the reporting that he did was very good work, very good professional work. And in my opinion, I have no reason to question the man's professional integrity.