Mr. David Went:

At the ... When I first heard about it, I was, in the common parlance, I was fit to be tied. I found the ... I felt that this was a product that was not required. The maximum LTV ratio at that stage was 92% so I did not believe that going to 100% was something that there was a crying demand for that product in the marketplace. I also felt that this introduced into the Irish market an unattractive feature which was potentially competing on credit quality, which was ... rather than on price, service, you know, all ... a number of other things, but ... things that banks had competed on for years ... but, it had not generally been the practice in the Irish market for banks to compete on credit quality and, therefore, I felt that this was a very retrograde step.

I also felt that in general terms that it introduced for the first time into the Irish market, you know, a no-moral-hazard product for the mortgage customer, effectively. It had always been my view that, you know, the ... having ... customers having to demonstrate some form of saving over a period of time, having to demonstrate that they had a deposit for their house ... all of those things were good social things and good from the point of view of prudential situation.