Mr. Niclaus Bergmann:

I will try to answer those three or four questions. I hope I have not forgotten anything. Loan sizes in Germany for small and medium enterprise are between, say, €5,000 and €50 million. Whoever comes to us, we try to serve them. A small entrepreneur or local plumber will get a small loan and if a large client comes which wants to build a plant, we will also try to serve that customer, as long as it is somebody from that region. Each bank only serves companies from the region.

We have our strengths and one of those is with small enterprises. When I speak of small enterprises, these are places where up to ten people work. We have a market share for lending in the German market of 70%. It is a really big strength. When it comes to lending to large companies, the Volkswagens of this world, our market share is about zero. This is not our pair of shoes. We focus on small and medium companies. For companies with up to 500 employees, which would be typically German Mittelstand, there is a market share of approximately 40%. We are quite strong in that regard.

With regard to the relationship with Ireland's credit unions, they are very valuable partners and we do not want to compete with them. We see them as our natural born partners in this case. I could imagine credit unions working as agents and selling products of the public bank. These would be the kinds of products they do not have right now for their clients. In this way co-operation is possible, and this leads to the question about the next steps.

What is our role? Sparkassen in Germany work on the regional principle so they are not allowed to open branches in other countries. Sparkassenfrom Germany would not have a financial interest here and we will not set up branches. We give advice and that is the task of the Savings Banks Foundation for International Co-operation, SBFIC. We bring our experience. This means we help develop the concept but we also help to start the business and make it sustainable. When we are thinking about a five-year period to get the system running, we would be here in that time to support it. We would have our staff and expertise in doing that. We do not bring capital but we bring a reputation. Not only would we bring a successful model to the country but we could also give our German reputation to it so people in Ireland can trust the system.

I think when it comes to financial matters at least, people tend to trust the Germans. Members do not have to love us. Something I think is even more important is that when we help to set up public banks here in Ireland, we put our reputation at risk because if this does not work here with all our support, this will backfire and it will hurt us in Germany and on the European level, so we are very serious about making this successful, more serious than if we just gave capital.

Talking about the next steps - Mr. Boland mentioned this already - there has to be something concrete that would follow up now. It would be useful to do something like setting up a working group with different stakeholders, with one, two or perhaps three different Departments - those Departments that are involved already. Different stakeholders would also include the credit unions here in Ireland because they are natural partners for this concept and we would also be willing and prepared to join this working group to bring in our expertise. At the end of the day, this working group has to develop the Irish model. We know, for example, that legal form is important. I do not know whether it should be a normal legal form of a bank. Perhaps it should be something different. We talked to people from Trinity College who proposed their own legal framework. It was a strange thing called body corporate. I do not know whether that would work for a public bank here in Ireland but, as we said before, it has to be an Irish model. Many things can be taken from Germany, but not all. The closer to the German model, the easier it is for us of course, but at the end of the day it is a political decision here in Ireland as to how an Irish public banking model should look. We can be involved as technical experts but the decisions are for the Government to make.