Mr. Fergus Murphy:

The most important thing we are trying to do is move away from the concept of negative equity and towards the concept of affordability. Much of what we are doing is being done with the intention of driving it in that way. The Deputy correctly mentioned that the negative equity on AIB's mortgage book is €6.8 billion. Under the prudential capital assessment review, we have provisions of €2.8 billion in place for that book. We have also made provision for other asset classes and books, etc. It would be irresponsible of AIB, as a Government-owned bank that has been recapitalised by the taxpayer, to approach the mortgage arrears and default problem that is being experienced by the bank and the country by writing off all negative equity overnight. It is not a solution for the country. As Mr. Duffy and I have already said, we need to get people into restructured loans that they can afford, if at all possible. Between 69% and 70% of our 33,700 customers who are in forbearance are affording the new restructured loans we have put them into. This approach is working, in the main. It is obvious that there are problems with between 25% and 30% of the customers in question. That is why the banks have been initiating advanced forbearance under the supervision of the Central Bank over the past year. We are trying to restructure these customers' loans in a deeper way to see whether we can get them onto a sustainable path again. That is the approach. It relates to affordability rather than to negative equity.