Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I take the point that has been made. These transactions, as I said, took place at the end of September last year. The meeting referred to in the article in The Sunday Tribune did not take place until 22 January 2009. I am simply making the point that the Department of Finance official concerned had not been briefed on any discussion that may have taken place with the Financial Regulator on the matter and was not in a position to comment on that discussion, and the official concerned gave no imprimatur whatsoever to those transactions.

The position of the Financial Regulator is that it did not give authority to a transaction that would constitute a wrongdoing or would not be in compliance with the Central Bank Acts or the companies legislation. Regardless of what motivation there might be for putting across such a view — it should be kept in mind that this was four months after the fact in a memo dated after the decision on nationalisation of the bank — in respect of people looking back to see whether they could find retrospective approval for any such thing, the investigator is the only person who can come to a conclusion on the matter. The authorities would not agree with the interpretation being put on the reference to the memo dated 22 January, which is an important date when one takes into account that we are now looking back in the aftermath of a due diligence process that had taken place prior to that date and the decision taken by Government to nationalise the bank in the interest of maintaining financial stability in the country and of making sure that a bank of systemic importance did not fail. I am putting it no further than that.

I am as constrained in the matter as Deputy Gilmore but I am simply making those points as they are the reason we should be cautious in accepting the veracity of any such interpretations, given the interests of various parties, if I am making myself clear. Furthermore, I regard the official concerned, whom I know and with whom I have worked in the past, as a person of the highest integrity. I have no reason to believe that the Office of the Financial Regulator was not also seeking to discharge its duties conscientiously.

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