Professor Alan Ahearne:

I don't say I was surprised. I had ... in the previous time I was in front of the committee, I had said that I had met the Minister in, maybe, August of 2008 and had suggested to him that he should try and get as full a picture ... as good a picture as he could possibly get in the thinking about policy for banks but, again, you know, this is a ... to do the, sort of, exercise that NAMA did, for example, just takes a lot of time.