Mr. Alan Dukes:

On Deputy Timmins's first question as to whether we can accelerate the process, we would hope so. As I stated in my opening statement, de-leveraging so far has exceeded the targets that were set in the 2011 restructuring programme. If it turns out to be possible to do so in a shorter period of time than originally provided for, we will be happy to do that.

Having said that, we must pay attention, first, to the need to minimise the cost to the taxpayer and, second, to the capital maintenance issue. To put it crudely, we could sell the whole lot tomorrow if we did not have to worry about the price. If we were to do that - this is an unscientific way of saying it - and if we stated that we are not worried about the price and total return and we are prepared to burn all the capital, we could probably sell the whole lot tomorrow, and that would not be a good outcome for the State.

Deputy McGrath mentioned judgment calls. We must make judgment calls at the end of the day. The sale of the United States loan book last year was a very successful enterprise. It would not be possible in the market circumstances today to get anything like as good a result for that loan book. It may happen that next year market conditions in the United States might be such that somebody could come along and say to us that if we had held off our 2011 sale of the American loan book until 2013 or 2014 we would have done much better out of it - they might well be right - but we must make a judgment call at a point in time. In answer to the question as to whether we would accelerate it if possible, the answer is "Yes", if we could do it happy in the knowledge that we were maximising returns and that we were not burning capital.

The same applies to Deputy Timmins' question about the INBS mortgage book. I am not criticising any person when I say this, that the condition of that mortgage book when we took it over was rather bad. It is a difficult mortgage book.