Mr. Pat Farrell:

Yes, well, I need to see the detail on that. This is my understanding, open to correction: there was an amendment in the updated legislation which included the ability for commercial mortgage to be collateralised and then be issued on the back of a covered bond. First of all, a covered bond is a very highly rated instrument. It has huge legal protections in it and it's retained on balance sheet, unlike a securitisation which is off balance sheet. So a covered bond is a very good instrument. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a very, very good instrument for funding. Let that be on the record.

They asked for the inclusion of commercial mortgages and I think there might have been a general interest more broadly than that. The fact was, across all competing jurisdictions, peer jurisdictions, the ability to include commercial mortgages in covered bonds, where there were covered bonds legislation was already the norm, so we were just, literally, coming into line. That was legislation of 2007.

The statutory instrument which gave effect to the element that allowed commercial mortgages to be collateralised was placed before this House, I understand, and I'm subject to correction, in mid-2008. At that stage, as we know, events had overtaken us and, again subject to correction, but my understanding is that Anglo - you named the institution - didn't do a transaction under that particular mechanism. I'd also like it to be recorded that, using the covered bonds legislation, it became a vitally important instrument for all of the banks operating here, because it became an acceptable method of collateral to post at the ECB window for liquidity purposes. And we all know how important that actually became because the ECB had certain criteria for liquidity and one of the types of the liquidity they were prepared to accepted ... or collateral they're prepared to accept at their window for liquidity purposes were covered bonds.