Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well I would be careful to avoid any unforeseen consequences or to, you know, unplanned for consequences. I mean it's a careful operation this whole part, and as you know when you listen to central bankers, whether it's ECB or anything, you know you change a phrase from what you said last month and everyone thinks interest rates are going up you know. They all speak in quite formulaic ways for good reason in terms of avoiding market interpretation of what they're saying and people getting the wrong idea of where the thing is going.

But to say to you that ... that from my point of view, you now, I have ... I had good respect for John Hurley, I believe he's a straight shooter, I believe he ... he gave me the considered view of the board. He mentioned downside risks always, you know. He wasn't in there buttering me up or saying what I wanted to hear, he was a very good public servant, in my opinion. And obviously you know when things go wrong, everyone gets blamed and "Why didn't you do this?" and "Why didn't you do that?" But I think that he let me know what he believed the Central Bank position was and there would be nuances, there'd be points of emphasis from time to time. But it was never sort of ... by definition the Central Bank never say to you, "There's no problem." You might actually hear from them a few ... when they're saying something to you in their presentations and they'd be saying to you, and you'd say "Well is there anything ... how's ... is there anything good happening at all?" sort of thing. You have to balance it out. But he would give, in my opinion, an accurate view. I don't know what Mr. Patterson's referring to. It's probably best put to Mr. Hurley as to whether there's any substance to that idea that Mr. Patterson gave to you.