Mr. Brian Cowen:

No I didn't receive any representations. The ... when that issue came up back in January of '08, when I was Minister for Finance, I stated last week in my testimony regarding that time that that was an issue I recall, there was a discussion with the then Secretary General, David Doyle, about ... who spoke to me about it and he had been a member, he was a member of the NTMA board. The question of the NTMA seeking, you know, insisting you write to them to say, so they go and do what was being suggested was at their insistence, and I did that for a period, that covered a six-month period and it was renewed in July by my successor.

I think the background to that, just to clarify it, is you know there was a view that obviously the NTMA acts independently and if they want to put its money into the Central Bank rather than anywhere else that's a matter for them. In their view I think at the time they weren't putting any money into any banks anywhere. So I suppose it was felt that with the tightening liquidity situation back in December ... December '07, January '08. You know if banks, Irish banks were out there looking for funds from internationally, it would be important to be able to say that their own NTMA, their own treasury was putting some money into their accounts, into their banks as well. Otherwise if they weren't able to say that was it going to make it less likely that they'll get funds out, would they be on the road getting funds for that purpose? So I think it was in that context that the letter was issued.

Secondly, of course the NPRF at this stage I was also writing to the NTMA asking them to get involved in you know, be available for contingency planning for this liquidity issue that was continuing. And we were sort of ensuring by putting ... getting the NPRF possibly involved at some stage in the future was something that was being mooted. It was a case that we would ever have to give direct liquidity support from within our own funds ... as a country, so they were involved in a way that in that sense as well. So that's basically the background to all that.