Mr. Fergus Murphy:

In terms of me agreeing with the sale, I believe there were a number of viable, legitimate and credible scenarios that EBS could have gone down and one of them most definitely was a sale or on-shore merger, which is obviously what eventuated with AIB. So at the point of hearing that I felt that was a credible way forward and I think all of the actions and behaviours and values that were espoused at that point in time in terms of working with the AIB team would have reflected that. In terms of the board in general there were, as I say, a number of options that were worked through as I mentioned, actually, in my opening statement. And they were worked through for a multi-year period ... periods. You know, I would have led discussions locally and internationally with various financial institutions or private equity firms and all of them possibly could have been a transaction or could have been successful. It's very, very hard to say definitively because, of course, it's a hypothetical scenario. But there was interest across the board in EBS and it is good to see, for example, that PTSB, another one of the smaller institutions during that timeframe, during that time period, has come through and has recently been successful in getting some equity internationally. So there is a marketplace out there, there's always different options, permutations and combinations, Senator. I think the option that EBS went down was a secure and solid one and has, as I say, over the last three, three and a half years we'd be ... we would feel good that the work that's been done in EBS and AIB is coming through and building a viable institution. There may have been other options that may have also been viable.