Mr. Shane O'Sullivan:

A number of options or sequences of events would be considered in the type of case to which the Deputy referred. One is the hardship approach. Where customers or borrowers suffer the difficulties that the Deputy outlined, they are appropriate to be considered under a hardship policy. By its nature, this is not normal to the more routine process. The process becomes more difficult according the numbers and types of loans a customer may have. I am not saying it is easy to deal with a mortgage in distress but it is certainly more difficult if the customer also has a credit union loan, a term loan or a visa card in distress. Efforts have been made in recent times to appoint an intermediary. A charity, StepChange, fulfils that remit in the UK and the Central Bank has facilitated a certain amount of work to introduce the concept to Ireland. While it has fallen away in recent times, after a pilot with the banks and unsecured lenders that lasted 11 months, that is not to say the banks cannot act in a collegiate fashion to put the trusted intermediary model at the centre of the aforementioned type of difficulties. Another option worth considering is the Insolvency Service or, beyond that, bankruptcy. I hope I am answering the Deputy's question. We discussed the options with the Central Bank and it is involved with some of them.