Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

Well, I'd like to say this was wonderfully planned but remember what happened in 2011: things got a lot worse in sovereign markets before they got better. And had we waited until, say, March 2011 to get the programme, it might have had to be bigger, it might have been ... had conditions that were a lot stricter. It might have had ... it might not have worked, so the amount of moneys required at that point mightn't have been available. Because the programme started in the relative calm ... it didn't feel calm at the time, but the relative calm of November 2010, we had funding for all of 2011 and 2012 and we didn't need to rely on a market that was extraordinarily difficult and so, yes, in that sense, it was better to start earlier than later. Remember, in July 2011, the interest rate on two-year Irish money wasn't the 2% or the 1% or the 0% that you might find it at now, it was at 20%.

So, people wouldn't even give you money for a short ... for a relatively short term, unless getting that interest rate. That's how bad things were. By the end of 2011, November-ish probably ... but certainly by the end, that was down to 8%. We weathered the storm. That was the stormiest period and we were able to weather it much more happily, with much less problem than we would have had, had we not had the programme. But remember in that period ... I mean it would be interesting to talk to ... I haven't done it, but it would be interesting to talk to people about what's, what was going on inside the IMF and inside the ECB at the time, because I would bet you that they were starting to say it looks like we've done a really bad deal here, look at the way things are going, if it continues like this we'll never get our money back.