Mr. Michael Fingleton:

Well, over 38 years, Deputy, I was CEO and later, in ... since 1975, I became managing director of the society. And in that year, I changed the name of the society, of course, to Irish Nationwide. We were called the Irish Industrial Benefit Building Society. I changed the name to Irish Nationwide and I was instrumental in the appointment of KPMG as auditors to the society. Over the years, up to 1992, the society ... I built up that society, as CEO, with the full co-operation of our board and I always insisted that the board would be fully involved in the lending process, which was unique - and is unique - among financial institutions. And during the '80s, we expanded, slowly and conservatively, the development of the society, particularly in the home loans market. But in addition, we also did small ticket commercial loans for shops and individual offices, for farms and even for small developments and building construction. I think we have ... we had about 10% of our book in that area of the market. And in 1992, following the change in legislation, we took advantage, if you like, of the encouragement, as I've explained earlier, of the legislation which enabled the societies to engage in development and construction of housing. And we were encouraged, as I said, to do it and I quote, "[that] building societies should be a major source of funding for housing ... by investing directly in residential development". That was the purpose of the Act and the genesis of the Act in relation to that area. So, we decided at that time to get involved and we acquired, I think, 70 acres of land in Lucan.