Professor Alan Ahearne:

I realise that, I mean, the, sort of, accurate information you're talking about takes time to gather. The NAMA process, for example, was going to gather very accurate information - time-consuming, but they were going to drill down and, on a loan-by-loan basis get the, sort of, information that, ultimately, you needed. So, the Government ... I think at that stage it was very difficult for them to have a complete picture. How could they have? You're dealing with aggregates. This is what the, sort of, reports were dealing with. If you really want to get into the, sort of, assessment that NAMA did, and that, let's say, eventually, the ECB did in its comprehensive assessment and stress test, then you have to go into incredible detail, one-by-one, and that just takes a lot of time.