Mr. Alan Dukes:

There were some transactions. Let me give an example. We had a number of assets in the north east of England which were in a fairly distressed position and at a given point we had a report from the UK office about what the condition of that particular group of assets was, with a number of suggestions as to how we might go about prospecting the market to see how that would go. Some time later, another report came back detailing what kind of progress had been made on that and what kind of problems there were with that portfolio. And then, some time later, there would have been a number of specific proposals to the board as to proposals for disposal of assets. And, you know, they were subject to quite a lot of discussion.

And I can remember a series of board discussions at successive board meetings about how we were dealing with, for example, one transaction I can remember ... and I can talk about it because it is not going to be ... it was in the UK, a group of hotels in the UK, where there were a number of iterations of the plan to dispose of them, including a provision for restructuring some of the loans in order to get the thing into shape. So there was quite a lot of discussion at board.

I mean, it was one of the arguments - discussions - we had with the Department of Finance. In 2009 and 2010, for example, we had an enormous number of both board meetings and committee meetings, and it was represented to me that we were having too many meetings. And it was even said to me by people in the Central Bank. But once we explained to them what the subject matter of the meetings was, it was agreed that we were ... it was reasonable, if onerous. And I, as I have said to so many other people who have raised this with me, I think if the other members of the board had felt that I was convening board meetings too quickly, they would have been on my case pretty damn quick.