John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Well, I'll put the quote to you anyway, as I think the quote is a general kind of ... I just want your comment on it. "It exposes for the first time the way in which Fingleton was allowed to operate at will around the board table of Irish Nationwide, despite the society being chaired by an eminent professor of banking and being regularly micro-managed by the state's banking watchdog." And we've seen, and others have referenced, letters from the regulator. Many might argue - and this is what I want to put to you - that you, effectively, you or your status as a leading academic in terms of banking, that it provided cover, if you like, for some practices that were identified by the regulator over a period of six or seven years, most of which you were chairman of the board of the bank, which identified serious corporate governance issues within the bank, which didn't appear over that six or seven period ever to have been successfully addressed. How would you respond?