Mr. Tom Parlon:

No, I appreciate the opportunity you have given us to explain and just, I'm glad I wasn't asked that question, Deputy, but if I was put back in my new role when I went in, to sort of stop the galloping horse that was there would have been an extremely difficult job. If I had to jump out in front of it, I probably would have been dumped out of the job very, very quickly. And just to give a final point, in terms of, at that time, 10,000 houses created a billion's worth of Exchequer return. It created 30,000 jobs and it accounted for a 1% increase in economic growth. So it was a massive cash cow, everyone thought it was brilliant, but clearly, it wasn't ... and we were a big part of that. Our industry has suffered very badly as a result of it, and likewise, the whole country has suffered, and individuals, so, you know, to have stopped it at the time ... clearly we all, and I am looking forward to the eventual ... decisions that you take, and recommendations, but, just to say, having thought about it long and hard, and the CIF, whatever the impression might have been, they're a very impressive, serious organisation with people that have been there for 20 and 30 years, a lot of experience, and a lot of integrity involved in the people. We look at that in terms ourselves and say, "What could we have done?"

It would have been bloody difficult to stop it, at that time, but clearly, you know, a company that's reliant on your customers having 100% mortgages, and we not knowing where the financing was coming, and a banking system that was reliant on a massive lot of short-term credit and giving long-term loans was a recipe for disaster, but I didn't have the scope to see that, I'm sorry to say, at the time.