Mr. Cormac Butler:

The ECB appears not to be interested in this. That is understandable because it would open a can of worms. When the ECB lends money to an insolvent bank, for example Anglo Irish Bank, it is not allowed to get that money back. Therefore the ECB is not overly enthusiastic about measuring prudence and loan losses correctly. It should be but it is not. We have put that to the ECB but it takes six months for a reply and, when it does reply, it makes reference to things like "constructive ambiguity" and "confidentiality". It is not interested in looking at this area.

This is of extreme importance to Ireland because, when the Exchequer lent money to the banks in 2008, those banks were potentially insolvent but the Government was led to believe they were solvent. Therefore, the Irish Government does not have a liability in respect of those promissory notes or that guarantee and because the money is being paid back at €3 billion per year, or whatever it is, there is a question on the legality of whether that money can be paid back on the grounds that there was never a liability to begin with. The story would be very different if the Irish Government knew the banks were insolvent in 2008. In that case, the Government would have known it was putting money into an insolvent bank. I will give an example-----