Dr. Fergal Lynch:

I accept that we found ourselves in an extremely disappointing situation. We had no wish to raise expectations in respect of a scheme that was going to fail. We never would have done so. We were faced with extremely difficult circumstances and, essentially, only one option. We had no wish to raise expectations or give the impression that we were going to go ahead with a scheme that we secretly knew would not work or anything of that kind. We genuinely believed there was a very good chance of the scheme starting. As with so many of these issues, if one can get the scheme up and running, even in a modest way, it can gather steam thereafter and work. It was part of our hope that it would work on that basis. Unfortunately, it did not work because the extent of interest early on was very low. As I stated, and I think the Acting Chairman acknowledged, the scheme did not fail for the want of trying on the part of the Department.