Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

What is clear is that on 29 May the bank published its half-yearly accounts for the period to the end of March of this year. These showed a pre-tax loss of over €4 billion, mainly due to a write-off of some of the loan book. That represented a significant deterioration in the bank's position since it was nationalised in January and its assessment has been confirmed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and subject to stress-testing similar to the exercise carried out on Bank of Ireland and AIB.

I remind Deputy Kenny that it is very simple. The question of support for this bank is important in order to minimise the exposure to the taxpayer-----

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