Ms Ann Nolan:

If NAMA hadn't been established, we would have had a different problem; we would have had zombie banks. And while we may or may not have ... I don't think we would have avoided a bailout but I think we may have had a far worse problem in terms of the SME loans and the capacity of the banks to get back to looking at their SME loan books, which might have had a much worse impact on the real economy. Because, after all, you know, the banking ... and this inquiry is, obviously, looking at banking, but banking is there to service the economy and getting employment growing and unemployment falling was the most important political desire by both of the Governments in the last seven years.