Mr. Padraic Kissane:

My latest meeting with the Central Bank was on Tuesday and it was another very constructive meeting. As far as I can say, and not everything can be said here, I still have confidence in the process. As I said before, I certainly acknowledge that the Central Bank arrived late to the process. Great efforts and great levels of work and of manpower have been put in here. If the banks think that they will not be investigated properly, then they are in for a rude awakening. The Central Bank has this absolutely in its grasp. It will take time, unfortunately, before the banks come with their reports for phase 2 and identify the cohorts involved. It is only then that the Central Bank can go back to the cohorts that it might have begun to identify through the submissions that have been made to it by myself and others. The Deputy asked if I have faith that the Central Bank will carry out the process correctly. I think the process has taken far too long but I put have a lot of faith in the Central Bank for two reasons. Firstly, the Central Bank is our only hope to get this done properly because we certainly cannot rely on the banks to do it. I believe the Central Bank is presenting to this committee on 19 November.

Unfortunately, the Central Bank is legally restricted from being able to say a lot that it would probably like to say in the normal course of events. The powerhouses of the banks have many legal experts and any flaw or mistake made now could detrimentally impact people such as those here today. Therefore, the Central Bank has to be careful in this regard.