Mr. Brian Cowen:

I'd take whatever advice he had and sort of input it back into my own thinking as to whether it's ... whether I need to modify ... whether I need to change where we are heading or what we are doing. I mean, I was saying to him:

Look, we have a guarantee decision, or a variant of that, seems to be on the table. A nationalisation plus guarantee or a guarantee, that seems to be where things are at here. What's your view in terms of what would we need to be watching out for if we go down the guarantee route anyway?

And he tells me what he ... and I say, ''That's grand, thanks''. But I didn't ... we hadn't made any decisions at that stage. I was simply asking, are we, you know, getting an outside view on the context of a meeting at that point saying, "If we were to go down the guarantee route, what do you think? What should we be considering? What do we need to be looking out for?" Because, obviously, it was a big decision and he talks about state aid rules, he talks about, you know, the fact that some would be at an advantage compared to others ... there was a state aid issue there. Make sure it's time limited and make sure they pay for it. In summary, that seems to be what he's saying.