Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to welcome Mr. Brown and his colleagues here today. Paragraph 7 of Mr. Brown's opening statement concerns the issue of writing off or writing down mortgage debt. Some of Ulster Bank's competitors are now writing down and writing off debt. I am interested in some of the language used and have three quick questions about it. Mr. Brown said he does not write off debt. Is that just mortgage debt? In the second page he stated that the mortgage has to be seen as a priority over other unsecured loans.

When Mr. Brown says that write-offs and write-downs are an unhelpful distraction, he is talking about AIB. Is AIB's policy an unhelpful distraction because it is writing down and writing off debt?

The representatives of the bank maintain that write-off is likely to create issues around moral hazard and fair outcomes for customers. Are they really suggesting that it would be a problem for some of the bank's customers if the bank wrote off some of their debts? How can the bank possibly justify that?