Mr. Matthew Elderfield:

I have said before that we have to steel ourselves for a significant increase in repossessions. It is not desirable, it is a last resort, but the relative level of repossessions in Ireland compared to the United Kingdom is rather low. There are good reasons that will be the case in future but it would be surprising if they stayed at those low levels. A legal case, the Dunne judgment, has stopped the legal proceedings in the meantime, but I expect that if one does not co-operate with the bank and share financial information then the bank will move swiftly to take legal action under the new framework. However, if one is a co-operating customer and one declares all one's information and one is upfront, then the banks will work step by step through the process and have a wider range of options. However, as a last resort in some cases if a customer is right at the cusp of insolvency or insolvent then it is possible there will be repossession cases. I imagine there is likely to be more voluntary surrenders whereby the banks say it will be impossible to keep a person in his home but if he surrenders the house, they can work out some sort of deal on the shortfall if there is negative equity.