Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, the capital adequacy issue only arose later on when PwC came back, having looked at all the six banks, and said the markets ... the markets are now demanding, quite apart from anything else, that there be a greater capital ratio in the banks than would have been traditionally the case before the crisis began. And, remember, this liquidity problem was now 14 months old. It was longer than any liquidity problem that had arisen since the Second World War. So that when the thing started, there was a view that, you know, this might last five months, it might last three months, it might last six months, and as things were getting ... going on longer and then you had the second round effects of the sub-prime crisis in America and how that was affecting that banking system, suddenly you had a real problem and you had the globalisation of risk all over the place, then you had more problems. And the fact of the matter is that, unfortunately, there wasn't a clear understanding anywhere, as far as I can see, anywhere of what the cross-border risks of all this were and where it would end up. And when you're left then ... but, say, like, you're on your own, it's ... there isn't an EU competence in this area at that point in time. There isn't a single supervisory mechanism. You have to deal with it. You have your people around you and you're facing this.