Mr. Alan Dukes:

I am glad the Chairman appreciates my difficulty. It is a work in progress whether it will be possible to get it into shape where we can sell it or a big portion of it within five years respecting our overall objective or maximising returns but it is something we would like to do.

Deputy Timmins' next question related to some of the issues that are outstanding. On tracking title and ensuring the solidity of title, in both the former Anglo Irish Bank loan book, which we took over on nationalisation, and the INBS loan book, we have had to do a very considerable amount of work to ensure that we can be confident that we have good title and a good base on which to deal with them. There is ongoing work on that and the committee will be aware that a considerable amount of work had to be done in that regard in the transfer of chunks of the loan books to NAMA also. I am not sure we will ever be at the point where we can state with full confidence that every "i" is dotted and every "t" crossed, but we have put a considerable amount of effort into ensuring that the condition of the book is as good as we can make it so that we can make progress on the sales. It is probably fair to say that in none of the asset disposals in which we have been engaged so far have we met any substantial problem in that regard because the books have been properly prepared for the sales. The great majority of that work is done in-house.

On legal fees we said that there is a big volume of legal work that will need to be done on behalf of the bank and we invited a wide diversity of firms from across the country to make offers to us for the terms on which they would carry out this work. Our objective was to get the work done as cheaply as possible but ensuring that we got the quality of work that we required. We have broadened the field out considerably past the large firms in the business. Personally, I take the view that there are probably a good many legal practitioners all around the country who, if given the right opportunity, could be as big and as successful as any of the big four or five, and if they can do it in doing good value work for us, I would be happy with that as long as we get a good bang for our buck out of it. We have paid particular attention to legal practitioners and receivers in seeking to get value for money on that.

Our legal department is competently staffed. We could do with more staff. We are currently in the process of considering the best means of replacing our chief legal officer who, to my great regret, resigned amicably a short time ago. She wanted to get a life back again and we are looking to replace her.