Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

No, it is not because the guarantee we gave on that night was the right guarantee for that purpose. The Deputy can argue about it every way she likes but that was the situation. That was our judgment and final assessment of the situation. That is where it is at. It has been stated subsequently, whatever one says about subordinated debt, that this was the issue. This debt was discounted, some of it to the tune of 80%, in subsequent discussions. It was 3% of the total amount guaranteed.

The difficulty on that night - this is where people come back into the equation - was whether one could differentiate and whether one could do all this. The point was to make the strongest, most assertive guarantee one possibly could to make sure the markets responded positively because we were faced with systemic failure within days, which would have seen the banks on the floor, if the guarantee did not happen. That is stated in the Honohan report.

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