Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Where I am from, which is Limerick, Ulster Bank was seen as being at the forefront of SME and agricultural lending. When people were borrowing from the bank, they could hardly have expected to end up in vulture fund. Mr. Blair makes the point that it relates to assets. My point is that customers are concerned that they have a viable businesses, take a farm where someone might have borrowed on the basis of a building or maybe a venture that has nothing to do with the farm, the economy crashed and now they are in a position where the vulture fund could sell their farm, so that their means of livelihood is gone and they are no longer dealing with Ulster Bank. Did the bank seek any assurances from funds such as Cerberus that when the loans were being sold on it would be taken into account that these were family businesses? We are talking about family farms, which have been farmed by successive generations, and family owned businesses in the SME sector. Many people are sceptical, and feel that Ulster Bank outsourced the stripping of their assets in order to repay the loans. How does the bank respond?