Mr. Brian Cowen:

Yes, well, I've seen this issue come up in ... in ... with earlier witnesses and I, sort of, made some inquiries about this with the Department to try and get what the factual situation was, Chairman. I don't have the paper with me but my understanding, to answer your question, is that we didn't ... we didn't tell the regulator what to do in this situation. The regulator had decided that having had that provision in the Act, to do a consultation process with the industry, who were raising some issues about it, that he would defer going ahead with it until that consultation was completed. He notified Kevin Cardiff in that section about it on ... in April and there's a letter on file from me which is confirming what was ... what was indicated to Kevin Cardiff, and I think that's being interpreted, either in Nyberg or Honohan as we, if you like, interjecting and making "Oh you do it this way rather than that way". I'm ... I'm assured by the ... by the official who dealt with that, Mr. Beausang, that the situation that I'm giving to you is what happened. We didn't ... we weren't involved in influencing the decision. He made his decision. He informed us, and we confirmed we could live with that, although there's a note in the file as well from Kevin Cardiff, or in the letter to ... to a person in the regulatory authority saying that they still had, on a case-by-case basis, the right to do this if they wished to do it. So, it's-----