Mr. Patrick Neary:

Well, I think you have to bear in mind a few things. What were ... what were ... what was the environment like at the time? You had an economy which was growing, you had incredible demand for residential property which was serviced by property developers and builders. It ... there was no sense whatsoever that there was any likelihood of an increase in defaults or an increase in loan impairments. I mean, we were monitoring that very carefully. And, for almost a decade, the question of a bad debt in a bank was unheard of. Now, that's the reality. We have to ... I suppose, banking supervision people are mainly accountants. We have to take the facts as they're presented to us. We assess and look at the composition of the capital. We look at the composition of the loan book from the point of view of looking for impairments and default. And those just were not happening. So, I mean, the growth within the economy and I think we're straying into .. excuse me ... Senator ... excuse me ... I think we're straying into a financial stability area and this is ... I think, fits comfortably where the Central Bank had a mandate to assess those risks that were out there and to alert the Financial Regulator to the threat posed by those risks.