Ms Fidelma Clarke:

It's a difficult question to ask me. As Mr. Merriman said, and I think as was well articulated in the 2008 accounts of EBS, the then chairman who had been chairman for two years set out that, given that the society was reporting losses for the first time, the society felt it needed to demonstrate accountability to its members and it wanted to do that both at board level and also at executive level. And as Mr. Merriman said earlier himself, he felt he was probably the right person from an executive level. Is any one person responsible for the decisions of the society? I don't believe so. The decisions and the risk decisions of the society and indeed any bank, are a collective responsibility, in my opinion, of the board and also of the full executive team.