Mr. Gerry Mallon:

I cannot comment in respect of where other banks are in the process, the systems and issues they need to work through or their start dates and ours. I reiterate my apologies for the length of time this has taken and the fact that it is not something which is about us delaying in any way, shape or form. Rather, it is about us trying to do the best we can with the complex situation we are facing.

There is no incentive to delay. This is something which causes pain and frustration for our customers. Unless we can address this, the bank has no hope of a sustainable future based on customer service, trust and advocacy, which are our strategic objectives. We have put money aside to resolve this issue, which includes project costs. If I was able to double the resources and deliver the project twice as quickly, it would not cost me any more money because we would be done more quickly. The longer this drags on, the more it costs because we need to continue employing outside consultants and so on. The costs escalate. There is no incentive for us to drag our feet. It is genuinely something which I invite the Deputy to understand in more detail. It is a genuinely complex issue which takes time to resolve. We are working very hard on it.