Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, Chairman, as you say, I had been in Cabinet - a Fianna Fáil-led Cabinet - since 1992. I'd served in spending Departments and the Department of Health. I'd been a Minister for Labour, which had me dealing with the social partnership process, getting ... and knowing a lot of economic actors in that sphere of influence. As Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, I had responsibility for all of the semi-State sector at a time when it was opening to competition and there were new policies being put in place and challenges for all of these semi-State bodies. I was also Minister for Foreign Affairs where, as a member of the General Affairs Council at Europe, for example, you'd be preparing for summit meetings of Heads of Government and State. It also involved a lot of trade work and working abroad on behalf of the country with other delegations, including trade delegations, meeting a lot of trade representatives who were working on behalf of Irish agencies. And I then became Minister for Finance. Now, I don't know is there an identikit as to what qualifies you to be a Minister for Finance but I certainly was a person who was au faitwith the workings of Cabinet, with the processes of budgets, having negotiated on the other side of the table with Minister McCreevy and, so, you know, I think my experience was, compared to others, as much as anyone else. I'm not a qualified accountant, which probably is helpful. So it's a question of political direction and leadership of a Department, which I was asked to do. So, you know, that's ... obviously I felt I'm qualified.