Mr. Brian Cowen:

No, well, I mean, what was involved there was ... when ... on Monday, there was an unfortunate incident where Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey were out at the opening of a road in Meath or Louth or up around there - Slane or something - and they had asked for what's the story and there was some story in the newspaper about it. And they were told, ''No, there was no talks going on'', and they went out and just gave that simplistic position instead of just saying ... what I would have said is ... not saying what ... I wouldn't criticise them in any way, they simply said what they were told by someone in the Department or whatever. They didn't get the nuance of the situation at all. I'd have said, "These are matters ... we're here opening a road, these are matters for the Minister for Finance. You'd better talk to him about it."

But the point would be that they were ... it was seen as if, you know, they were giving misinformation, which they weren't. Not as they understood it. They weren't giving misinformation. Technically we weren't in negotiations with anybody. There were discussions going on, we had not agreed to go into a programme, we had not applied for a programme, but we were in discussions about the possibility. But until we knew where that was going we weren't even acknowledging that, not because you're trying to mislead anyone, but you don't want the European people you're talking to to think that this is all ... that you can say what you like to us and we're going to go in anyway.