Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I reject the continuing effort to suggest otherwise. The Minister for Finance and I dealt with this on the basis of advice from public officials. We made the decisions on that and no other basis.

In regard to the question of what else was involved, we made the decisions that night and the discussions continued until the early hours of the morning. It was not a question of me getting papers. It was a case of examining the situation and asking what was the challenge to the system on that occasion, what needed to done and whether the Government was prepared to act. We had to take those decisions and I believe they were the right ones because the advice of the people to whom I referred was that the financial system was at risk. I was not prepared to take that chance and no responsible person in our position in government at the time would do otherwise. The suggestion to the contrary is simply not true.

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