Mr. Alan Dukes:

Before answering that question, may I add one brief remark, which was implicit in what I stated in the opening statement? The context of the bank's activity, as the Chairman observed, is to wind down the operation by 2020, including the preparation of the ex-Irish Nationwide Building Society loan book for sale, if possible, in five years. While that was implicit in what I stated, I should make it explicit. Moreover, one of our concerns is to maintain the capital base of the bank. It is part of the complex of decision making that we maintain the capital base in the interests of the shareholder.

On the matter of public interest directors, it is true that I was first appointed to the board of the bank in November 2008 as one of two public interest directors under the action that was taken by the Government at that time. The bank was nationalised subsequently and is now the property of the State, the Minister for Finance being the shareholder. I am unsure of the ceremonials of the issue but I would consider each director of the bank to be a public interest director at present. Our mandate is clearly to act in the interests of the shareholder, who I take to be a proxy for the public interest. The Government is obliged to act in the public interest and, consequently, I take the view that all our actions in the bank are to be seen in the context of pursuing the public interest, as it is defined for us by the regulations and policy framework laid down by the Government.