Ms Fidelma Clarke:

Yes, I mean, I don't think I'll be saying anything that other people who've attended the committee haven't said. Competitive pressures put institutions in a place where they made decisions to extend their credit criteria in a way they hadn't prior to that. It was informed by enormously strong economic growth from the mid-'90s, affordability was very substantially improved with the reduction in tax rates and the low interest rate environment. Also, there were a number of households where there were two incomes rather than one income as women returned to work, given the demarginalisation of the tax rates. So decisions were made very much informed by a very positive economic environment and a view that that positive economic environment would be sustained. We now know, with the benefit, of course, of hindsight, that that wasn't the case and the soft landing that people spoke about for many years in the early 2000s became a very, very hard landing at the end of the day.