Mr. Jeremy Masding:

That is a good question. In our organisation, as with any business, we have to prioritise the allocation of resources and we prioritised our resources in respect of the variable rate challenge we had. First, there was the MVR product and the opening of the back book. We then prioritised fixed rate products for our new customers and they are now of the shelf in terms of a competitive rate. The last time I was here I was asked why we did not have fixed rates and the reason was to do a fixed rate mortgage, one has to find some equal and opposite funding at the right price and at that time, our franchise was perceived as weak by the market. We could have put fixed rates on the product but they would have been very expensive. The good news for Ireland is that since then, as the business has improved and we have continued to compete and show we are an important contributor to the financial services landscape in Ireland, depositors and funders have been prepared to give us resources at the right price. The next stage for us is to move that offer to our existing customers. It is just a question of priorities and choices. We will offer fixed rate products at competitive prices to our back book customers as soon as we can in 2017.