Mr. John Gormley:

Well, I made reference to the fact that I had raised the issue with the then Finance Minister at a pre-Cabinet meeting and I recall asking Brian Cowen at the time of Northern Rock how were our banks.

And the then Minister gave me a Department for Finance answer, because I'd seen the same answer being given to the Opposition parties, I think, later on - that our banks were well-capitalised and that there was no problem.

To answer your other question: was I aware of contingency plans? No, I wasn't. I was interested in the testimony given by Kevin Cardiff to this committee because he indicated that plans had been prepared, contingency plans of some sort, over a number of months. Was this communicated to the Cabinet? No, it wasn't, and I wasn't aware of it. I only became aware of these plans when I discussed it in the week previously that something was afoot, so to speak, but Minister Lenihan said, "Look, we're dealing with this." And that was ... it certainly wasn't months in advance, as Mr. Cardiff had indicated.