Professor John FitzGerald:

That programme almost got me divorced. I said that if I believed what I said, I would sell my house and rent it back. I went back and Eithne said to me, "It's our house and we're not selling." I was in deep trouble and have been very careful ever since that it is our house. We did not sell. When I heard that the Senator was interested in that programme, I looked at it again. It was a very good programme that set out the risks. If one looks at the quarterly economic commentary published at the same time, it said that there was a serious risk of housing crash and a risk to the financial system. Up to 2008, we got it right. You are in the eye of the storm and on the edge of a precipice. There are two outcomes - one, you fall over the precipice and the other, you pull back. We picked the wrong one. It goes back to the questions that were asked earlier. If the rest of the world had not collapsed, we would have come through. In the eye of the storm, you do not see what is going to happen in the future. That programme was good. It reflected the thinking and publications of the ESRI and the concerns we had in that regard.