Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

Well, I think the issue here, Deputy, is that the policy ... you know, the Government made the decision at the time to set up NAMA, and it's our job to implement it, and that's what we've got to do. I mean, there was this contingent liability hanging around that, you know, there'd be a black hole in NAMA and, therefore, the Government would have to cover those losses. We're saying that's not on the ... that's on the horizon. In fact, we're turning a surplus.

I mean, the issue is that the world financial markets had made the decision in ... first of all reflected in the share prices of the banks that collapsed around 2008, but also in 2010 when Ireland had to go into bailout, that the banking system really had brought ... you know, had huge consequences for the sovereign, put ... resulted in us getting a bailout from the troika. And, I think the ... maybe if somebody wanted to do the sort of experiment of leaving these problem loans with the banks, really wasn't an option. It wasn't an option from, I suppose, the troika in terms of this, that they decided they wanted these assets removed.

So, you know, other countries did different things. Like, in the UK, they did an asset protection scheme where effectively they insured the assets of Royal Bank of Scotland, about €280 billion. And, you know ... but I suppose the big difference in terms of the UK and here was the UK probably had the firepower to be able to deal with that. But also in terms of Ireland, once Ireland had done the bailout in September 2008, doing an asset protection scheme really wasn't an option. It was certainly looked at by Dr. Bacon as one of the options, and it just really ... I think he concluded, which I think was a fair conclusion, that it really wasn't an option to do an asset protection scheme after doing a bank guarantee.