Mr. Fintan Drury:

Well, let's first of all deal with the type of activity to which you refer and let's be clear about what was in train. I had a long experience of Hungary going back to the 90s when I established an office for my communications consultancy in Budapest. I knew the Hungarian people quite well; I had worked very closely with a number of people in a number of businesses in Hungary. And I believed in the value of what the Hungarian people and the Hungarian state was attempting to do post its accession to the EU. And I always maintained a strong interest there.

Far from approaching the project, in the way in which you have profiled it, the project was an investment, a proposed investment, of a significant amount of money by a number of people - a small number of people - in a development in an area of ... outside Budapest called Pilismarót, which is not an area where anybody lives, was wasteland, and which the mayor, who was, as it happens, an independent politician of left wing disposition, wanted to see development in order that his community would benefit from the introduction of something that he saw and members of the council saw as being a positive venture. As with anything like that, and you people in this room will know and understand this better than I, there is always people ... or likely to be people who are not in favour. The project was not bankrolled by Anglo Irish Bank. There were no loans from Anglo Irish Bank. And the emphasis you have placed on a particular media or medium, is one which was challenged at the time, as being incorrect and was, subsequently, not followed through on. I mean by that the report, just to be clear, was not accurate in a great many respects. So, the representation or presentation of me, in this case, as being somebody who behaved in a manner which was to disenfranchise people from areas of land which they rightfully, or rightly wanted to manage in a particular way against their wishes, was completely and utterly false - No. 1.

No. 2 - There was never a line of credit established between me and Anglo Irish Bank in that respect, which gives me the opportunity to, if I may, Chairman, just make one point of clarification. In 2005, my business wanted to make an acquisition and we needed to raise €1 million to make the acquisition. And it was discussed at the board of my company and we decided to proceed and I said, "I would like Anglo Irish Bank, as I'm a director of the bank, I would like Anglo Irish Bank to have the opportunity to tender for the business, but I cannot go and meet with and deal with and interact with the bank." So my chairman, who had no connection with Anglo Irish Bank whatsoever, went to a number of ... two banks, one of which was Anglo, and a deal was done whereby Anglo became the lender to the business and that is ... I'm simply using that to emphasise the point that in my dealings, I attempted at all times to create an appropriate distance between me and other parties in respect of my directorship of Anglo Irish Bank. The presentation in The Mailwas ... let's put it this way, it was inaccurate and misleading.