Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

-----from Deputy Gilmore on the reasons for the decisions taken on 29 and 30 September 2008. Had Anglo Irish Bank not been included in the State guarantee, there would inevitably have been a run on the bank as depositors and other providers of funds to Anglo Irish Bank would have rushed to withdraw their funds from that institution. The bank could not have met those immediate demands and would have collapsed. There would have been instant contagion to other banks and confidence in the entire Irish banking system would have been undermined.

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