Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Brian Cowen:

And I didn't have a copy of it, it was sort of passed over and they went out then, if you like, to work out ... to work up what ... what we were sort of going to do. And Kevin came back to me with ... not a draft but he was saying, "Look, I think this is too wide", and I said, "Go back and do it right and to your satisfaction." And eventually he came back with what he believed was an accurate reflection of the political decision that we were making. And I don't ... as regards where the copies of it are, I can't ... I'm sorry. Sometimes when there's reiterations ... iterations of things going around, you end up with the final document and all the previous drafts are, you know, they're not part of the process, they're put away or they're ... tore up or whatever. You end up with the final iteration. That's only speculation on my part, but I don't have ... I didn't see anything beyond that. It was this sort of four or five-line thing, you know, based on what you'd be including. Kevin Cardiff not happy with that, going back out and coming in with something that was in line with what we wanted and that's fair enough then, that's it.

There's a separate issue then, I think, that maybe some ... causing some confusion. I might come it to, as well, at some stage and that is ... after we made a decision ... a Government decision was needed to be made late that night and we made it incorporeally. Part of that decision was that obviously we'd have to ... we would issue a statement to the markets before seven o'clock. And arising out of that decision then, you would go off and prepare a statement for the next day in line with the decision. So, I think, there's two things here, there's this-----