Mr. Peter O'Mahony:

The €2,000 limit is per bid. In a lot of cases, as was mentioned earlier, people who are lending are friends and family. We obviously do not want to place any restriction on that. I mentioned a butcher earlier to whom we lent. He did his barbecues during the summer. He had a fantastic butchery business and his father always wanted to support him in the business but the son was too proud and would not take cash from him. This was a perfect vehicle for him, so in the last hours of the auction be bid €6,000 in three lots of €2,000 to support his son in the business. We do not restrict from that point of view because as Deputy Murphy described, he is looking at an auction which is 100% funded. So if somebody was looking for €20,000 and it is 100% funded, every new bid that comes in the market is going to bump out an expensive interest rate. The top rate of interest at that time might be 12%. If one wants to come into the loan now, one must bid at least 11.9% and move that bidder out. On a €20,000 loan, we find that €10,000 or €15,000 might be bid in the last hour or half an hour, as people try to become part of it and bump other people in the market out of it. In the butcher's case, his father was doing that for the last couple of hours of the auction. He was picking an interest rate and putting €2,000 in. He wanted to lend €6,000 and only ended up lending €3,500 because he got bumped out just before the thing ended. We would actively encourage it. Once a loan is 100%, every new bid will make the loan cheaper, on average, for the borrower.