Mr. Brian Cowen:

Regarding the guarantee options, Alan Gray was the only person outside of the system that I talked to. And I explained before here that the reason why it would be appropriate to talk to him, apart from the fact that he was a guy whose opinions I respected, he was also a member of the Central Bank. So he was, if you like, you know, subject to the confidentiality and other ethical standards you'd expect from a member of the board of that sensitivity. So it wasn't inappropriate, if you like, to talk to him and it was just to get an external view. When your in the midst of a crisis like this, you like to think "Is there someone outside who I can ring just to see are we ... are we in the right ballpark at all?" Secondly, there was no one else there other than him who I spoke to about this. As regards David Doyle and John Hurley, obviously I was in touch with the Governor and the Department of Finance Secretary General from time to time as this thing was intensifying. Over that weekend there was a number of meetings which I attended at which they would be in attendance and they would give the view of their institutions or whatever. And Mr. Cardiff would be there obviously and Mr. Lenihan would be there. So, in that context, yes, talking to them, but not ... they hadn't ... I mean, when, when we came to the actual night itself, you know, I hadn't my mind made up what we were going to do. I didn't know what we were going to do. I mean, anyone that would claim they'd know what they were going to do before that meeting would be a pretty ... a pretty clever guy. I didn't. I wanted to be briefed, I wanted a discussion, I wanted us to look at all the angles, look at all the possibilities. But I did, as I've said in my statement ... in an emergency situation, I know the type of man that John Hurley is, or was, as a public servant and how he articulated himself. He was a man of very moderate language and not prone to exaggeration and it was very clear to me, listening to him as to what went on that day, that we had a very, very serious situation here.