Mr. Richie Boucher:

I cannot comment on an individual case. I note the example the Deputy gives. We have to go through a very significant route to get a repossession. Repossession is a last resort. In our presentation we show that of the civil bills sought by banks 6% are from Bank of Ireland, the other paragons of virtue are at 94%. As a proportion of our book and as to where we are, we do not use the threat of court proceedings as a negotiating tactic. The other banks the Deputy describes clearly do. They bring people to court as a negotiating tactic.

I cannot talk about the anecdotes the Deputy hears. All I can talk about is the verifiable available information, which is that Bank of Ireland accounts for 6% of the civil bills despite having 21% of the mortgage market. I can only deal with the facts as I see them. It disappoints me. I do not like the image of our bank being given in the terms the Deputy describes. It is not an appropriate image. I have 500 colleagues who are trained to do their job for the bank but to do it in as empathetic way as possible. We do not use pejorative words around our customers as other people do. They are our customers and they have challenges. We do have practices, policies and procedures. Some people do not like them but they are consistent.