Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, our official position still at that time was that we were prepared to look at various processes, including a probationary programme, including a parallel programme that we could take up if we needed to. Remember, we were sufficiently funded until May or June of the following year. Now, I'm not suggesting that you would wait until May or June of the following year to decide what your next funding mechanism was but, you know, it was a matter for us as democratic ... as the democratic Government to make those ... to make that positioning and to do whatever leveraging we could do on our position in our interaction with the institutions. Now clearly the ECB, in the personage of the governing council of the ECB, I'm sure had a view on that from a monetary point of view but, you know, we had a lot of considerations to consider in that.