Dr. Michael Somers:

Well, in terms ... the Government decision really was to recapitalise the two main banks by putting preference shares into it and we took the view ... well the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission, of which I was a member and which also ...

I mean, it was an independent body and it was given huge independence by Charlie McCreevy to do what it felt was correct. But the obligation on it was to maximise the return on that fund because it was supposed to meet a substantial portion of the pension liabilities and no money was to come out of it before 2025. And that was all laid down in law. So we ... when the Government said, "Okay you've got to put money into preference shares", the view of the commission was that is not a good investment so we can't do it. And they had to change the law, and they changed the law to provide that they could give us ... that the Minister could give us a direction to put money into preference shares in the banks, so we did what we were told.