Ms Fidelma Clarke:

It ... it would be nice to believe that the EBS of the 1990s, where I cut my teeth ... I joined it in 1991, I was doing a master's with Trinity and I wanted to find out the difference between an annuity and an endowment mortgage so I joined it for six months and I stayed there for a very long time thereafter. I think it would be nice to believe that that society model could have been sustained. My own personal belief is the availability of credit and the very intensive competition in the market from the early 2000s meant that had EBS decided to retain its 1990s model, if I can call it that - the one I was familiar with - I'm not sure that any board would have - and I am speculating, so let me say that - I'm not sure that any board would have voluntarily taken itself out of the market that it felt was its business to be in and that was providing mortgages to homeowners, traditionally teachers, guards and PAYE workers.