Mr. Richie Boucher:

We have to look at the wide range of issues with which we must deal. We must ensure the viability of the bank and in particular take into consideration those customers who are meeting their mortgage repayments and those who are in restructures and sticking to them. I presume that paying a mortgage is not easy for quite a lot of those customers. A total of 86% of our customers fully meet the terms of a restructure, while the other 14% are probably meeting quite a lot of the terms. We also have the providers of capital to the bank. We need capital to be able to lend into the economy. Our ambition is to lend over €33 billion into the economy and we need the capital to do that. We have ensured that the way we have run the bank means that how taxpayers' money is spent with Bank of Ireland is not our decision. The bank should never have got into the position where we had to get taxpayer support and we worked hard to make sure that the taxpayers got €6 billion back. That €6 billion is for the taxpayers to decide through their elected representatives how that money is spent. It is not for Bank of Ireland to decide how taxpayers' money is spent. Those are the considerations we must take into account. Sometimes we can look at something and say that it is not fair in isolation but one cannot look at situations in complete isolation. One must take into consideration one's broad range of responsibilities and how one runs a bank and takes into consideration those broad range of responsibilities. It is very easy sometimes to hone in and say that something is very difficult and harsh. Sometimes it is but we must take everything into consideration. In taking everything into consideration, we have managed to restructure the bank and ensure we are lending into the economy, that we are the only bank with an EU viability and restructuring plan and that we are the only bank that got support that has repaid the taxpayer.