Mr. John Gormley:

Well, again, at that stage - and I think it was made clear in my official statement - it became very clear to us that the Anglo debts were massive, that they were insolvent. The only option at that stage - and it was a road that, I think, the Taoiseach was always reluctant to go down but it became inevitable - was to nationalise. And it was the option, I think, that nobody favoured. It was quite clear to us at that stage that we had an insolvency problem across the board and there was also ... in relation to Anglo, I do recall, it was always said to us by Minister Lenihan that it was a systemic bank and that, you know, for a number of reasons that it was linked as well to, for example, the credit unions and there was a lot of cross-securitisation and that it was linked as well to various other banks because of interbank lending.

And so that was the reason that ... for a lot of us it was the last option, and that's why we considered and that's why he gave us ... he gave us a good briefing at that time, and said to us that that was the option that we should go down.