Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, obviously they were ... the ECB is the authority that looks after the stability of the euro and they were saying if you're a member of this currency, the rule is all banks ... you're not to allow any bank of systemic importance to fail because the contagion effect of that is something that may not be able to be handled. So, in other words, if you were to allow that to happen then and not abide by that, apart from dealing with the problems you're going to have to deal with, which in my opinion would have meant a run on all your banks, would have made no sense. But even if you allowed it to happen, then you ... it would be very hard to find a co-operative ECB in the future to fund your banking system with liquidity.