Mr. Noel Brett:

I suspect that if any of us around this table had to fill it in for our own personal circumstances, it would not be an easy process. That is why I urge people again to sit down with representatives from a body such as MABS or StepChange who have expertise in filling these in and who will walk through the documentation with them. I included the SFS in my pack because I wanted to show the Deputies just how complicated it is. This process is not set by the lenders. This is the process that borrowers must go through. It can be done, and there are people in the country who have a lot of expertise in assisting people. We must understand that there can be language issues, literacy issues and numeracy issues - all the more reason to engage with one of these supports and choose the one with which an individual is most comfortable.

Regarding the number of those in arrears, the Central Bank publishes this data. I have some very high-level data that I am very happy to go through. Again I am relying here on figures from the Central Bank. I am obviously precluded from reaching into individual lenders. As a federation, we are precluded on competition grounds from getting into some of these issues, so we will rely on published Central Bank figures. According to its most recent figures, as of the end of 2015 - I anticipate these figures will have improved even further - the number of mortgages in arrears continues to fall. It currently stands at 88,292, which is 11.8% of all accounts in arrears. In terms of two categories, private dwelling houses and buy-to-let properties, 61,931 accounts are 90 days or more in arrears. The category we should all be most concerned about is those who are 720 days or more in arrears. There are 36,351 accounts in that category. That number has been falling, thankfully, since 2015 and overall, as I said to the Chairman earlier, of private dwelling houses, 120,739 accounts have been restructured to date. Some 86.5% of those are meeting the arrangements in full.

Of the 23,000 accounts which are more than 90 days in arrears those of most concern are the 15,064 accounts which are 720 days in arrears. I cannot state enough the importance of engagement between the borrower and the lender. It is in the interest of everybody, including the lender, to address the issue and try to resolve it. Rent receivers have been appointed to 5,967 accounts. If the committee wants more specific granularity the clerk can ring me and if I do not have it myself I will certainly try to source it from the Central Bank. The committee may choose to source the information directly as it is on the Central Bank's website. I was not expecting to get into this level of detail. I thought I might be speaking more about broader macrosocial policy. If the committee clarifies what it needs I will certainly do my best to get it.

I am not sure if I have covered adequately the issue raised by Deputy Funchion on people rejected from the mortgage-to-rent scheme. I have highlighted the reasons. I will admit that from our perspective in the early days of the scheme the lenders were probably so keen they referred cases which, with the benefit of hindsight, did not strictly meet the criteria. It may be interesting for the committee to get the perspective of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the Housing Agency. This is the key piece in terms of mortgage to rent. I ask the Deputy to please flag it if I have not covered an issue.