Mr. Ger Mitchell:

There are probably two or three points I want to make on it. First, we understand what the Central Bank is trying to do. It is trying to increase the resilience of the banking and household sectors to the property market. It is trying to reinforce the credit risk mitigations tools that banks currently have. At the heart of what we have started to do in recent years is to put affordability and repayment capacity, not the value of the asset, at the heart of underwriting. The value of the asset is a secondary or tertiary issue that one looks at. We are working with Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, BPFI, in terms of the consultation period, which does not close until 8 December. As to our view on it, we advocate a more moderate approach towards the proposals and even to consider a more graduated approach. The situation is dynamic. No later than the weekend, the Governor has come out and introduced the prospect of having an indemnity guarantee. Recently, the Government has spoken about an indemnity guarantee as well. There is a lot of stuff in the air at present. We have provided our feedback constructively through the BPFI and that is the way in which we will continue in the weeks ahead.