Mr. Fergus Murphy:

Unemployment has stabilised, house prices have stabilised and the monthly increase in defaults in the banks has been reducing month on month for nine months. We are beginning to see an inflection point in the economy, where, hopefully, the worst has passed and the economy continues to stabilise.

We will contact 1,500 customers per month in the coming months to restructure their mortgages in a deep restructuring called advanced forbearance, using products like split mortgages, where we try to put the customer into a sustainable cash flow pattern on mortgage part A and warehouse, at zero interest to the customer, the second part of the loan, for the foreseeable future. In this process we will link in with the customers on a regular basis to see how they are getting on. Where people are unemployed currently, hopefully they will be employed in the future so that where one person of a couple was working, there will be two. People will receive salary increases or promotion and the economy will grow. This is a medium term solution we need to work through as there is no short term solution that will make the problem disappear overnight.