Mr. Pat Farrell:

We will try to get that figure for the Deputy. I must make the point that most people who were in business around 2007, when preparing their three- or five-year plans, projected that the economy would have grown by about 25% up to now, but instead it has shrunk by 25%. That is a catastrophic reduction in the economic output of the domestic economy. Something has to give. If one builds one's business on servicing that level of capacity, one must seriously reduce one's business or it may transpire that one no longer has a viable business. That is a hard but indisputable fact, and it needs to be borne in mind.

On the issue of non-performing loans, the Deputy is correct. In many cases, one of the big problems - two chief executives of the banks who appeared before another committee recently referred to this, and Mr. Trethowan is also aware of it - is that the underlying business is still profitable and sound but people got involved in property speculation and investment during the Celtic tiger era and they are now trying to service those investments from the business, which is putting a huge strain on the business. One of the challenges for banks is to work with customers to examine the core business and the activity within it to ascertain the needs in this regard while, separately, examining the property issue and how it can be dealt with or structured. Mr. Trethowan may have more to say on that. I am not sure whether I covered all of the Deputy's questions.