Mr. John Moran:

First, the decision is a policy decision, as the Deputy knows. As to what way the Government wants to vote on this, we make recommendations as things come through, and we give suggestions in the context of what I said at the beginning and in the context of risks and various other things we might have in the system. I can say this as somebody who is not going to be involved in these decisions next year. However, I do think it is important for us to reflect a little, particularly in the political process, about these types of issues, which are very sensitive issues, and how we want to handle an environment in which we can find a way to reward people for the work they are doing.

With regard to the issue of an executive or non-executive chairman, as both of us know, having both sat on boards, what may be described somewhat easily as "only working a certain number of hours a week" does not and should not reflect the reality of the responsibilities of officeholders. I believe Deputy Ross and I would both agree and like to see that people who sit on boards take the responsibilities very seriously and engage with the institution in terms of the amount of time that is required to do what is required to be done. While I do not want to personalise this with respect to any one individual, a search was conducted for that position and relative skill-sets were put in place, the board of the bank recommended this as the option to us and to the Minister, and we agreed to do it. However, we did it on the basis that this is an individual who is not necessarily just counting the number of hours he is doing. He is undertaking very serious responsibilities as a chairman would have in respect of the control of the board and, indeed, of the CEO and the management team. It is important that, as we think about our system and about reasons why people leave or do not leave the system, we try to find a balance that actually gets us into the right space for the future in respect of growing the economy.