Mr. Alan Merriman:

So AIB, just to, you know, give you a very quick summary, AIB were very keen to merge, acquire EBS. Eugene Sheehy made the approach to Ted McGovern.

It was a very clear approach. The type of conditions they were prepared to sign up to were to make it more attractive to the EBS board to agree to that deal. And I, personally, at the time - despite having joined EBS for a number of reasons including believing in mutuality - I at that time had a personal view that I felt it was the better option for EBS at that point and would have advocated to both the chief executive and the chairman that we should proceed on that basis.