Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. O'Sullivan for that. Certainly, when the then Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, brought it through, he was very clear that they were not meant to be target times. They were set in the legislation as maximum times and, as was predicted at the time, unfortunately, they became a default.

The second issue is the cost of borrowing. We know that the Irish banks' blended cost of borrowing is significantly higher than for their European counterparts. If we could get the standard variable rate, which is 4% to 4.5%, down to more European norms - around 2.5% - this would result in a massive benefit for households, for the economy, for job creation, for everything. With quantitative easing kicking in, as of March, €60 billion per month is being pumped in, so the ECB rate falls. I appreciate that PTSB is only 15% funded by the ECB, but in the capital markets generally, money is becoming cheaper, so we would expect to see interest rates falling across the board. Is there anything the Oireachtas could do to help reduce the blended cost of borrowing for the Irish banks? It appears, from what we are hearing from the Central Bank in its initial report, that there is not profiteering or rent-seeking going on in the Irish banks in terms of the higher rate, but it is two percentage points higher, nearly twice some of the European rates. Is there anything the Oireachtas or the Government can do to make it cheaper for the Irish banks to borrow money, which then could be passed on to the Irish people?