Mr. Jim Brown:

Until April 2011, mortgage arrears for both markets were highly correlated.

As unemployment was rising, so mortgage arrears were also rising. That is quite common across more markets than just simply the North. A number of factors have happened in the Republic - such as the inability to contact, not having the Dunne ruling sorted out, the lack of a credit bureau and so on - that in our view have had an impact on our ability to collect and may have been a factor in causing a divergence in the correlation between mortgage arrears and unemployment. What has happened is that since 2011, that correlation has continued to hold in the North. Even though unemployment is rising, arrears are rising. However, in the Republic, unemployment has come down from its peak of 15.1% to 13.7% but over the same period, arrears have increased. Over the same period, the average repayment on a tracker mortgage has reduced and so what we are highlighting is that other factors must be at play here that have caused that correlation to break down.