Mr. Bertie Ahern:

-----to write the reports. But it was a decision taken by the Minister for Finance. I was consulted. The ... I think Peter Bacon stated at the committee that they were done ... that the changes were done too soon and, you know, I wouldn't argue with him in that. I accept that. But the reason, Chairman, was that while the prices stabilised for period, the rent zoomed up. The rent of apartments and flats went up something like 85% in a relatively short period. And I recall well, because I live in the city, before the university students came back, there was an outcry by the students union, by the way, as there is now - they've posters up around the city again asking for landlords to give them ... if anyone wants to let their property to get on to them - because the rents were going through the roof.

And a third ... people tend to think, okay, it was the immigrants, they can pay a bit higher rents because they're working or it was people in jobs, but a third of the people in private accommodation, in landlord accommodation are supplementary welfare cases - they are people on social welfare. So it wasn't some abstract thing that it didn't ... it didn't matter, it was the ... it was ... the people were suffering most from some of these changes were the poorest people in society. And I represented a lot of those poor people and I was, you know, very conscious that we were hammering ... because the supplementary welfare officers wouldn't give the increases and Joe Public, who was in rental accommodation, was being screwed. So ... like, when the model and the theory was ... and I'd a lot of regard for Peter Bacon ... might have said one thing, the effect of it was hammering people who were at the bottom and that's why we changed it.