Mr. Ed Sibley:

In terms of what was required from a liquidity monitoring and reporting perspective, it was pretty short-dated. An institution could look fine from a liquidity reporting perspective because it did not go beyond 30 days, but have a big cliff of maturities beyond the 30 days. The regime itself was too short-dated in terms of making sure liquidity and funding of banks, not just in Ireland, was on a robust footing. There have been very significant changes to the liquidity regime to which banks now operate as a result of the failings of the pre-crisis regime not just in Ireland but globally. That is a very different matter from the matter in hand here, which is very specific. It is not around being 20 times past what was required. This type of thing is associated with having a maturity or liability in one of the time buckets when it should be in a different one. It does not indicate a fundamental problem with liquidity in the firm at the time.

If I may close by repeating myself, the evidence that we are willing to take enforcement action is the more than 100 cases that have been taken. We take a proportionate approach to using our enforcement powers and have taken more than 100 cases in the intervening period, where there have been serious breaches that warranted an enforcement action. There would be no reason for us not to take enforcement action in this case if it was warranted. We have evidence that we do take that action where it is warranted.