Mr. Paul Maloney:

To take the three elements, the first one was that the letter that went to the Department on this particular issue of seeking or borrowing to €127 million did not contain any valuation. That simply looked for an increase in borrowing. We were not saying, even to ourselves at that stage, what was going to be the bid price. This was only 3 October.

Second, as regards valuation, I take the Deputy's point exactly. The independent valuation I had in June 2005, which would be extant to about October 2005 - it was about a year old - was, with professional surveyors on my team, quite easily extrapolated to the current circumstances.

Third, the Deputy said the property market was falling in July.