Professor Alan Ahearne:

I ... I don't ... he ... there weren't many voices. Part of it ... there were a lot more voices on the soft landing - the economy would be okay, the property market will be okay. They probably drowned out any voices that were giving warnings like that. I think I said last time in front of this committee that ... that a huge amount of people were benefiting from the bubble, and therefore I know people didn't want to hear that. It's also ... I mean, the ... presumably politicians, the political system, would ... in hearing something like that would have turned to, say, the Financial Regulator, the Central Bank or officials and got their opinion on it, and I think the consensus opinion was that whatever's happening is manageable.