Professor Alan Ahearne:

I didn't advise on the particular breakdown. I mean, the quantum of money needed was, sort of, mechanically produced. Certainly, for the public finances, it was a case of crunching the numbers and seeing what sort of money would be borrowed and what maturity ... what money was maturing. On the banking part, the number was extremely large. I remember that - €35 billion. It seemed very unlikely that we required €35 billion but the troika had insisted on that. They ... I mean, they wanted large amounts of capital put into the bank. I think the ECB wanted large amounts of capital because the bank would then have cash and they could repay the ECB. Ultimately, the ECB's ... my perspective on it's approach to this in the weeks leading up to the entering the programme was that they wanted their cash back and they wanted restructuring of the Irish banking system in a way that the Irish banks would repay quickly the amount of money that had been borrowed and the ECB would, therefore, reduce their exposure.