Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, in relation to the letter, when it came on 19 November, first, I mean, it did come as a surprise to us because, I mean, Brian Lenihan had a very good relationship with Commissioner Rehn. And we had been, you know, in the normal way, in discussions with them since September in the Commission and they were obviously, you know, you had this annual budgetary interaction between the Commission and the member state of a euro country. And we were outlining to them what our thinking was, the need to provide a four-year plan, to provide a clear statement to the market as to what Ireland's intentions were over the medium term, that we were intent on getting our deficit, which we had brought under control in 2010 ... we had seen growth for the first time in GNP since the crisis began, we saw year-on-year improvements in our exports for the first timevis-à-visthe more competitive position that we had established because of the reduction in our unit labour cost vis-à-viscompetitors. So there were things starting to show that was ... and, of course, our balance of payments was coming back into surplus, which was indicating that we were earning our living in the world, if you like, by reason of a positive balance of payments outcome.

So, we were indicating that we were committed to this process and we had shown from 2008, you know, without any prodding from Europe we were adopting a very responsible position in terms of getting our budget back under control over a period of time because the gap that had opened up was quite substantial. So there was no question of, sort of, having to contact a recalcitrant government about meeting its responsibilities in terms of euro area Stability and Growth Pact criteria. We were conscious that we were well over it, we needed to reduce and we were going to reduce, and we were doing that.

So the question is, when you ask me ... when it's said that it was superfluous, in that sense we felt we couldn't understand why it was necessary for to put that in writing since we were already in conversation with the Commission. They had a fair idea where we were going but the ECB obviously had come to a view on the liquidity assistance at a meeting earlier that week. I think by the time we got it, you know, we were in the process of moving towards a decision on whether we go into a programme or not, because we were getting certain assurances from that process of engagement that we talked about earlier when we sent over some officials to have these talks about talks what had they in mind. We wanted to make sure that you didn't end up in a situation where you were accused of being in the programme, not knowing what the terms were and then people laying out terms to you, and that wasn't going to work politically. Finally-----