Mr. Michael Walsh:

No, I wouldn't agree with that. I think, you know, the unfortunate reality is ... I mean I had believed - and I think I included a paper in part of my statement - I had believed really from, for all practical purposes, the early '90s that small institutions like the society, like EBS, like First Active, could not hope to survive in the long term, given the way the markets were evolving. So I was clearly of the view that the society should be sold to a larger institution and, you know, my deep regret, that did not happen. But the only way it could happen was on the basis of legislation. Now, when I agreed to take on the role in 2001, legislation had, supposedly, been agreed by the Central Bank, by the Department of Finance and the Department of the Environment. That legislation should have been implemented then; it wasn't for whatever reason and, unfortunately, the rest is history. Every single year ... I mean, when that didn't happen in 2002, the Central Bank said they were going to try and put it in as part of the 2003 Central Bank Bill. In 2003 they said, "Well, we didn't get it in there but there is a working party now; it's going to get agreement in terms of how things are going to be set up."

So, I believe the society would have been sold much earlier. Clearly, the society was going to continue to run its business properly and efficiently over the time period but I think both the board and the management would have expected that it would have been sold much earlier than that. I think Dr. Nyberg, whoever briefed him, didn't really get a proper understanding. The society was absolutely focused on getting a sale of the society done, obviously at the best price possible at the earliest opportunity, because that's what it believed was right from the point of view of the society, the point of view of the members and the long-term structure of the markets.