Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Brian Cowen:

At that stage, if you are talking about an analysis which was mistaken that it's a liquidity crisis only, the whole idea was make them pay for ... you're giving a guarantee, you're standing behind the system, they pay for that so you're going to raise money, if you like, on that basis. They weren't going to get it for nothing. They were going to get it for a certain amount of time and if you could get through this liquidity crisis and they came out the far side of it solvent then, of course, you had a situation where you had given a guarantee and had got revenue for giving the guarantee. But, clearly, you know, that was a best-case scenario in all circumstances.