Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Well, the statement doesn't relate to what happened during the course of 2008. I'm talking about the property bubble, as it emerged and when it emerged and as it "growed and growed", like Topsy, and I'm saying that, no, frankly, I didn't, I regret, make the connection between the property bubble and the risk to the banking system. I suppose partly because we were getting all these bouquets about the quality of our banks. Anglo Irish won a competition somewhere, in Davos, as the best bank in the world, I think. Bank of Ireland Private similarly, had some award, from memory, and we were being assured by the authorities, whose task it was to regulate the banks and make decisions about credit expansion and so on, that we had a very sound and robust banking system, and I bought it.