Professor Alan Ahearne:

No ... I mean, the way you put it there is far too stark. Ideally, the loans would have moved in one go and there would have been a price given and, therefore, the Central Bank, in doing its PCARs in the March of 2010, would have seen that price. And, therefore, a line could have been drawn over how much capital the banks needed for those particular assets. Now, the banks needed more capital for different assets, but at least for those.

The reality is, of course, that there was so many loans and, most importantly, the European Commission had set down rules by how these were ... how these would be priced and transferred, and they involved loan-by-loan transfers and due diligence and so that made for a slower process. So ... now, there were advantages to that in that doing that loan by loan allowed ... meant that the pricing was much more accurate and it allowed the State, through NAMA, to see the full picture. You could imagine in theory where a random sample ... a large random sample of loans is taken, they're priced and then all of the loans transfer at that price. That would be faster, but, of course, it would be more risky because you are only taking a random sample.