Mr. Brian Goggin:

In any business as substantial and as large as Bank of Ireland, you know, issues will arise from time to time. The response by Bank of Ireland to those findings I have here. It didn't come in my core documents but I requested it of the bank and I can read the answer to you because it deals with these specific issues, just the Bank of Ireland specific issues. In terms of credit reviews, M1:

Bank of Ireland corporate banking would stress that when it reviews all borrowing relationships, connected exposures are grouped and clearly highlighted in the credit papers. The BOI corporate banking credit unit and/or credit committee therefore have full visibility on the complete risk picture. There are, however, limited situations where exposures are linked by a common shareholder who, indeed, may only have a minority stake in the borrowing vehicle. Where Bank of Ireland corporate banking aggregates these lines with the other exposures for reporting purposes, there may be no financial dependence on that minority shareholder for the connected risk. For these reasons, Bank of Ireland corporate banking believe its approach in these limited situations of aggregating the exposures and reviewing the risks separately is prudent and it can assure the Financial Regulator that where a credit issue arises in a linked exposure, it is promptly reviewed and dealt with, bearing in mind the overall connected limits.

And in relation to M2, the response reads:

Since credit committee on 30 August 2007, Bank of Ireland corporate banking has exited the [blank] and has achieved a significant reduction in exposure and the risk on the residual facilities remains within tightly controlled parameters. The strategy remains one of prudence and risk containment to this connection.

So we substantially exited that connection. And the frequency of reviews by private banking, the Financial Regulator's recommendation is accepted and agreed. That was the formal Bank of Ireland response to those issues, Deputy.