Mr. Stephen Bell:

What would really help, and I am sorry if this sounds a little harsh, is if we could agree that for those people who will not engage and who do not pay or do anything to help themselves with this process that the courts will allow those cases to move through the system more quickly because what we have now is not helping us or the customer at the end of the day. Repeated adjournments and extension of the situation simply adds to the balance, the cost and the losses that everybody will face. We would be fine with bankruptcy periods of whatever length but what would make a huge difference is the ability for the court process to be speeded up in those cases where we agree this cannot be allowed to continue. The measure of that can be seen in England and Wales where the court system is faster. The most serious arrears have hovered between 0.2% and 0.25% of the total mortgage stock while in Ireland that equivalent number is nearly 10%, which equates to 50 times higher levels of serious arrears. The simple answer for that being the case is that no repossessions are taking place.