Mr. Liam McLoughlin:

We launched that four years ago in response to customer needs. There are different features to different products for different institutions. We have seen a strong and positive response from customers, particularly first-time buyers, to our cash-back offer, which is a very strong offer. The Deputy referred to rates. With the 3% or 3.2% rate on three-year fixed - depending on LTVs - the customers incur many initial expenses around legal fees and furnishings, and they like a lump sum. In effect, the lump sum takes down the cost of their borrowings in the first year. It has been a strong feature.

Unlike the marketplace, our fixed-rate offering has some very strong features that are very appealing to customers. Things are tied in on a fixed rate and there is no flexibility because of the break costs. However, the reality is that customers can overpay to the tune of 10% per month at the fixed rate without penalty. The Bank of Ireland also allows fixed-rate customers to port their mortgage from their existing home to a new home, so it is not the case that when a customer is in a house for five years and wants to move to a new property, he or she is stuck with a ten-year mortgage which he or she has to then break and take out a new mortgage. The customer is allowed to port that in its entirety. We have built a number of flexible options into our fixed-rate offering and they have proved very popular among our customers, which is evidenced by the figure of 88%.

Another important feature is that while 88% of customers are on a fixed rate, a number of others break their mortgages into an element of fixed and variable. Some customers like to have some element in three-year fixed, some element in five or ten-year fixed and an element in variable. All those features are accommodated under our flexi-options fixed mortgage.