Mr. David Begg:

It was completely wrong and I do not believe it was not personal, to be honest. I do not accept it. While I am well used to hostility publicly, the Deputy should consider, from time to time, the damage she inflicts on a person's family. It never seems to go through her head.

While the Central Bank stability reports tended to indicate what the risks were, it can be argued that it did not stress them strongly enough over the years. I can give an account only of my role. I gave detailed evidence to the banking inquiry. If the committee feels it is relevant, it is more than welcome to examine my three and a half hours of evidence to the banking inquiry and the two written statements I made. I also ask the committee to consider the evidence given by the then chief economist of the Central Bank.

On the multiple schemes that affected the straining cost, it is true that from the 1990s, when the Deputy was a shop steward in a company, I was involved in only one, the leave and return scheme, which set up a provision whereby people could enter into a defined contribution, DC, scheme separately. This restructuring was successful, in its way, although it was not very successful for the company which was loaded with many unanticipated taxation costs. For the people involved, it was good enough.

The problem of representation of people at the Labour Court is a difficulty. I am in favour of some opportunity for people to be heard. The Deputy is mistaken in saying we had no engagement with any of the other groups. ICTU staff were available to anybody who wanted to talk to them. I was constrained from doing so for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The difficulty was that there was not enough money. Regarding how to extract more than €200 million from people, maybe other people were better at it than I. It was the best I could do, and it brought a result which, while probably not satisfactory to anybody, as a damage limitation exercise, it was not the worst outcome.

While I am not sure how relevant my situation is, I will tell the Deputy. I have one pension from ICTU of €32,000 per year. Contrary to what was asserted, I do not have a multiple of public appointments. I have reservations as to whether people should be asked to declare such personal information. It has been said by all and sundry that I am a millionaire.