Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Can I just take you back a little bit? The financial markets had been in turmoil really since August 2007. We had queues outside Northern Rock here in Dublin in September 2007. We know that from January 2008, the Department of Finance was preparing scoping papers around the issues of financial stability, was looking at contingency planning, including nationalising banks and consideration of a guarantee evolved over the following months. What level of awareness was there within your party and at Government level as a collective body of the looming crisis and the preparations which were under way or not under way during 2008?