Dr. Michael Somers:

Well, when the NAMA project came up, you know, I ... the Minister, the Taoiseach, I think it was, did ask me ... asked a lot of us around the table did we support the idea, and we said, "Yes, we did." The more I thought about it, the ... well, I didn't quite know how it was going to be implemented, and I was uneasy about putting such a huge amount of State money into ... handing it over to the banks. The story was that if we didn't do this, the banks wouldn't start lending again. Now, of course, you could say, with the benefit of hindsight, well, did we really want them to start lending again? It was the lending that had caused all the trouble, and did we want to facilitate them in this? But anyway, that was, kind of, beside the point But, I felt that ... the banks were supposed to have 5,000 people dealing with all these problem loans, and we, at that stage, didn't have anybody. I mean, we needed to build up a NAMA operation. Now, I was very conscious myself of how difficult it is to get suitable people, to weld them into a team, to get them properly motivated, to set up all the systems, etc., and my initial idea - and I didn't know how the NAMA thing was going to develop at this stage - my initial idea was that if it came through the NTMA to run, maybe we could do it in the same way as we did with some of the other things we had. You know, we had the NDFA, we had State Claims Agency, etc., and that maybe we could get a small number of people, perhaps 30 or 40 people, and get the banks to do the donkey work and we would oversee them, and pressurise them to, effectively, get the money back, because that was my first thought, you know, they, they probably have commitments to, to people, property developers. And, I, I was shocked when I saw the level of loans that were out. But, that they could pressurise people to get the money back. I mean, they're well capable of pressurising people who owe them money to come back with it, whereas trying to set up a new NAMA unit. it didn't seem to me to be the optical solution. Now, I accept I could have been wrong on that because I think, well, okay, if they have it-----