Ms Josephine Feehily:

It is a contractual issue for now. As the Chairman asked, we will certainly look at it but I do not want to mislead the committee. While I will look carefully at it, I would be concerned about us getting into the business of retaining that kind of data. I would need all sorts of assurances in light of things that happened in other businesses in the past week or so. We would have difficulty satisfying ourselves that we needed to retain the data when the single debit authority, which is a simple, safe, secure solution, is an option. We are not sure we need it. We would have difficulty with the Data Protection Commissioner in that regard.

The comparison with iTunes and so on is not the same because there is a recurring relationship. One is topping up every week. Each time, one clicks that one accepts the terms and conditions. If somebody gave us their details and a year later we come back and ask about the card details he or she gave us the previous year, it would be more complex. The issue is certainly contractual but security, data and privacy issues also arise. I would have to have a good discussion both with ourselves, our IT people and our audit committee to see if it is a risk we need to take.