Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chair. It is on page 41 of Vol. 3. It is an e-mail. I won't say who it is from, but it is from someone in the Financial Regulator's office to one of the banks. It is talking about one of the questions that the IMF wants to look at in particular, when they come to meet the banks to look at the stress testing that they have done themselves. They want to know:

... how sensitive would specific provisions be to a large drop in house prices, given that the collateral behind the mortgage loan would have to be revalued. We realize that the current level of specific provisions is a very low percentage of the loan reflecting very low default rates.

So, just to summarise, this is the IMF coming into Dublin to meet with the banks following the stress tests that they have conducted, the parameters set by the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator. They, too, want a focus on a large drop in house prices and how resilient the banks would be to that. Why? How resilient the banks would be to a large drop in house prices. My question is, why?