Professor Patrick Honohan:

This is why we have expressed concern. We want to communicate not just privately to the banks, but to the public that we are concerned and we are not comfortable with this.

Somebody may complain that somebody uses colourful language. We are not comfortable with this situation and not satisfied with it. We backed the proposed insolvency legislation as one of the tools that would help. Unfortunately, to the extent that the banks are State owned, the consequences of not delivering on this will be that they will have to get more capital if they do not deliver on this because in the end they will lose out on this. For privately owned banks that is a bit of a sanction as they realise that if they do not get their act together they will be required to put more capital in, so there is a pressure point there.