John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Do you think that ... to refer to Deputy Higgins' earlier point, that this social event on 26 November 2008, a month and a bit after the guarantee ... now, you've said, with the benefit of hindsight, it shouldn't have happened but is that an acceptable excuse? At the time, what was going through your mind when you were attending that particular gathering? I'm not entering any value judgment. I'm asking what he was thinking when you decided on that particular night, that it was appropriate for you, as the Financial Regulator, to attend a social event at which most of the bankers that your institution was regulating were attending and just six weeks after a blanket guarantee for those institutions had been entered into by the State?