Ms Cathy Herbert:

Well I ... I actually ... I didn't brief the Ministers. I think that it might have been actually the Minister and the Taoiseach, or maybe the Government press secretary, who briefed the Ministers at the time. Clearly what we were saying was that the Government wasn't in bailout negotiations. Now, there were discussions going on at official level. It's obvious that the message that the Ministers should have been given, we should have been nuanced to recognise that, but I think the anxiety not to confirm - because once you confirm, then your options for negotiation are greatly narrowed - blunted that. It meant that the subtleties weren't gone into and that that was ... if you like, the message was just too blunt and it should have been more nuanced, clearly.