Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The reason I am pinning you down on this is that this is an issue which this inquiry has been looking at and will continue to look at. In 1996 the Central Bank in Ireland, in its winter bulletin, gave very clear recommendations to specialist areas with regard to sectoral credit limits. By the early 2000s, it looked as though, particularly with the testimony which has come before this inquiry, those concentrational limits were no longer being overseen or enforced. It is questionable whether they were even being breached at that stage. At no time were the sectoral concentration limits lifted by the Central Bank. To use Governor Honohan's phrase, it was a dead letter. In your latest set of rule making, is the Commission setting out clear concentration limits? Can you tell us what the percentage is? Is it 25%?