Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well how it came about was that we were coming towards the end of this ... Dáil term in July - or whenever the Dáil summer term was finishing up - and we had already, as you know, brought forward an adjustment in the ... Brian Lenihan, God have mercy on him, had brought forward a memo for Government about ... because of the slippage that was coming and the figures, the need to reduce expenditure and we came up with €464 million, I think, which would be a billion in a full year. But it was simply an immediate reaction by Government to ... a Department of Finance recommendation that we needed to start paring back because the figures were showing, that early in the year, that there was going to be a discrepancy. It was hard to indicate what the end-year position would be but certainly, based on what it was then, you were looking at that sort of correction as being appropriate for that time. I'm not saying that it was going to solve all the problem but ... at that time. So it was clear, therefore, that the Government ... that the economy was starting to slow down. And I was talking to Fintan Drury one day and I said to him:

Look, I'm going away, I'm going to try and get a couple of weeks off. I haven't had a break in a long time. But before I go away, could we get a few people together? I just want to talk about people about how they see the economy - how they see things going - because we're seeing here a slowdown.

And I wanted to see was there things ... was there a ...you know, was the assessment right. It was just, again, to get an outside view. And he suggested that he'd get a few people together. I didn't suggest to him "Get this, this, this and this." He said, "I'll get a few people together", and that happened and we had that conversation, as you're saying. And he said to me, "Look ...". It was on a Monday, I think it was, in the week, I think, and I said that ... he said, "Yes, look, do you want to play a game of golf while you're at it?" and I said, "Fair enough, I haven't had a game of golf in a long time." So-----