Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Okay. If I can just revert to yourself, Mr. Dunne. In your opening statement - and if I can get it up there please - you ... and this is related to your earlier engagement with Deputy Higgins, you state that the bank was confronted by the dilemma of ... then going on, triggering events which it was actually seeking to prevent and then going on to say again specifically that they ... they could precipitate that very ... the very outcomes in relation to the banking system and the property market which the regulator of the bank were seeking to prevent. Now, there's overall ... in ... just come back to your statement again there. In the ... I think it's the fourth paragraph up from the bottom, you kind of ... you're in the same space here. You were saying:

Overall these policies whilst recognising and publicly pointing to a variety of risks nevertheless consistently pointed to a 'soft landing'. The vehicle used was through the Central Bank's Financial Stability Reports. Here the bank was confronted by the dilemma mentioned in the introduction to this opening statement - that of triggering events which it was actually seeking to prevent.

One could ... would have to test the question here - were the banks through the financial stability reports, as Deputy Higgins, kind of, indicated, in a position that if they scared the horses here that it would become a self-fulfilling prophesy and what was being tried to be avoid would be indicated if the banks were more specific in their stability reports at that time? What would your response be to that thesis?