Professor Alan Ahearne:

I mean, in terms of immediately winding it down, there would've been no gain in terms of ... because it was under the guarantee, the creditors were all guaranteed, so it was no benefit to ... no reduction in the costs to the State. It still had to put the capital in. It was important that Anglo had a banking licence and was able to get funds from the ECB, because those were otherwise funds that the Irish State would have to do to wind ... to gradually wind this bank down.