Professor Alan Ahearne:

We all had the numbers. They saw what was maturing. The ... I guess the view in, after the banking announcement in, at the end of March 2010, and in the weeks that followed, the Irish banks were actually able to, their funding had stabilised and they were actually bringing in, I think there was inflows of about half a million, excuse me, half a billion a week into the Irish banking system, where there had been outflows for the previous, in 2009, of a billion a week. So that at least had stabilised. The Irish banks were able to issue bonds. I think Bank of Ireland was able to issue some serious bonds, senior bonds. So the hope was that if things continued to stabilise that the banks would be able to raise private funding. It was clear they wouldn't raise enough private funding to get over the cliff, and therefore the Eurosystem, the ECB and the Irish Central Bank would have to help out temporarily, but if they had, in the months that then followed, they would continue to issue bonds and raise funds, and they would've been able to repay that. So the hope was that things would remain stable, and things would continue to improve, well they were improving marginally, but if they continued to do so, the banks would be able to get over that cliff.