Mr. Bernard Byrne:

In addition, our capital is over 14%. We have plenty of capital and plenty of capacity to lend from a liquidity point of view. It is our objective to grow that balance sheet at the same time as we are trying to grow the profitability of the bank. We have no intrinsic motivation to do anything other than that. It comes down to the question of what is the demand for new credit. I referred already to the level of indebtedness that exists across SMEs, which is high. The other factor, which is always important, is the capacity in the marketplace to absorb that indebtedness. If we go back to 2008, when a lot of this credit was taken on, people were projecting that the economy would grow by a quarter in the coming years. In fact, it is actually 25% smaller now than it was six years ago.

There is significant extra capacity in the economy in terms of the investment in fixed infrastructure, which means demand has been low for a period. We always need to look at both sides of the issue. It is our job to try to improve the supply side. We feel we have done a lot in this regard, but we can always do more. The other important factor is how we can stimulate things on the demand side. The skills issue is another factor in that SMEs need more skills to submit their applications properly and understand the business planning process.

We are all agreed on the importance of resolving the debt distress issues. It is our job to seek to solve it by coming up with permanent solutions. I ask my colleague, Mr. O'Connor, to elaborate on that.