Dr. Cyril Roux:

It is. Those in government have given the Central Bank the authority to decide on these matters and this is a very serious matter of us to decide on because it affects people's lives. I assure the Senator that the commission of the bank, which makes those decisions, and the whole bank - the supervisory part of it, the banking supervisory divisions and directorate, the economics part and the financial stability part - are working very hard to take into account all viewpoints, experiences and evidence that is given to us in order to assess the impact it has on borrowers, banks and the wider economy. As we did previously, we will publish a number of elements of our research and economic studies to answer the question that the Senator asked. The latter will inform the decision the commission will take in the November. I am one member of the commission, the membership of which is nine or ten now. The debate has not taken place. As commission members, we are given information, research, studies and elements to consider what would be the best course of action. At this stage, we have opened the consultation process, although it had never been closed. We are considering the evidence.

We will act on this evidence to see how best to protect people. When these measures were introduced and this calibration was chosen after serious deliberation, we saw which cohorts of borrowers got into trouble, which were over-indebted and got into protracted financial difficulties. We do not believe that it is fair to disregard that evidence. That helped our decision. We would not want large cohorts in risky lending practices or being exposed to the risk of being over-indebted in the future. We have to balance that with the need of families, particularly young families, to establish a home, and we do.