Mr. John Hogan:

One of the initiatives we introduced in recent years was the credit-servicing legislation. We were acutely aware of the situation where a loan was being transferred from a regulated institution to an unregulated institution. We were conscious that the protections the borrower had in place under Central Bank rules, such as the code of conduct on mortgage arrears and the SME regulations, would travel with that loan. We took quite a bit of time to decide on the proper approach to the development of the legislation in question. We targeted the front-facing element - the credit-servicing firms - when we introduced the new category of regulated institution which is now under the supervision of the Central Bank. The Central Bank has been putting regulations in place to deal with that. The legislation was introduced 18 months ago. The Central Bank has been dealing with many credit-servicing firms on an ongoing basis. According to the most recent information provided to me, 15 or 16 credit-servicing firms have been authorised on a transitional basis by the Central Bank as they move into the more regularised and formalised structure. As the Secretary General has said, we are conscious that this area is evolving. We want to keep a close watch on what is happening in it. We expect the Central Bank to be an active regulator. If there are particular issues which require us to look again at enhancing the legislation by introducing new elements to it, we ask the Central Bank to bring them to our attention. The Central Bank has not yet raised any such issues with us.