Mr. Brendan Burgess:

The most important issue in comparing the situation in Ireland and the United Kingdom is that in the UK and in virtually every other country in the world, if someone does not pay his or her mortgage, after a few months the house gets repossessed and is sold, and some deal might be done on the shortfall. Even when one compares our arrears figures with those in the UK, it is a false comparison, because arrears get written off in the UK when a house gets repossessed. They do not have a personal insolvency arrangement or anything like that in the UK for secured debt because the solution is that the house is repossessed and people move on. That is the main thing that happens. That is why I disagree with Mr. Maguire. My forecast is different from his on bankruptcies. The banks are not desperately worried about bankruptcies; what they will do is repossess the house and sell it. We do not want to see bankruptcy as a solution. It would be handy to have a few big test cases - dramatic cases - to let the banks realise that people are happy to go bankrupt. Our primary target is that if people have sustainable mortgages or mortgages which could be made sustainable, they should keep their houses and they should not be repossessed. Any bankers to whom I have spoken have said they are not worried about bankruptcy. AIB might be a little different; the solutions it has reached in terms of write-offs are based on it working out that in this situation it is better to write off debt than let the person go bankrupt. I do not think bankruptcy will feature largely. The banks are not worried about it and borrowers do not want to choose that route. I have been recommending for years to people that they should forget about dealing with the banks, go to the UK and come back after a year or a year and a half and they will be free. I do not think anyone has ever taken me up on that advice. They just do not want it.