Mr. Brian Cowen:

Yes, well, I think we did respond in terms of, you know ... I recall when all this happened, we had the recapitalisation and the nationalisation of Anglo in January. If I may so, there was a Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis in February, I think, and I made the point that we were going to change the Central Bank arrangements, that we were going to reintegrate the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator's department ... office, that we were going with the Canadian structure - the Canadian model - which had proven itself, probably uniquely, as having been the one democracy that I know ... one western country that I know that came through this crisis relatively unscathed because of the sort of regulatory culture that they had brought to bear over there. We were going for that sort of structure immediately. Now, we were saying "This is the way we want to go" because we weren't happy. I wasn't happy that we had ended up where we did but, at the end of the day, you know, as you say, the responsibility falls ... the political responsibility falls on our desk and I have to accept that and I do accept it.