Professor Philip Lane:

First and foremost is tougher regulation, which would have slowed down the credit boom. The second is fiscal policy. It is important that there were surpluses, and it is important to state that public debt did come down but the fiscal mindset was not sufficiently altered by Economic and Monetary Union, EMU, membership. If we had been running a fiscal surplus of 5% or 6% in the mid-2000s, that would have enabled us to absorb the hit of the crisis much easier.

The other element is in terms of crisis management. A more narrow guarantee and an earlier shutting down of Anglo Irish Bank would have helped to narrow the losses. On that I do not have anything different to say from what Professor Patrick Honohan said.