Mr. Simon Carswell:

On the night, the sense was that if there was going to be a guarantee for the sector, they would all participate in it. Again, the point was to not isolate any one institution as being the weakest or the strongest. If it was announced the next day that a guarantee had been introduced but that it was only for Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide this might have raised questions the other financial institutions individually. The blanket guarantee provided cover for all institutions. By the same token, some of the other banks were concerned that they would have been lumped in with those two institutions because the perception would be created in the market that if Anglo Irish Bank, which many people knew was in serious trouble, was being guaranteed the other banks being guaranteed were equally in serious trouble.