Mr. Ed Sibley:

It is difficult to answer precisely because of the very small number of Irish banks that are very active in the UK. Bank of Ireland is by far the biggest bank operating in the UK. AIB has a much smaller operation. It is similar in size in Northern Ireland but in terms of Great Britain, Bank of Ireland is easily the biggest. I cannot really talk about specific outcomes of stress testing on a UK mortgage book without really referring to one institution, which I am limited in doing.

We are broadly comfortable with the approach that the Irish banks are taking now in respect of Brexit in terms of making sure that they have considered it from a stress case perspective, to make sure they are sufficiently capitalised to address a severe stress associated with Brexit. Where I have more concern is in other sectors such as insurance, where the level of preparation is not as high and the organisational arrangements are different. For example, there are not always separate subsidiaries in terms of the UK operation. Both AIB and Bank of Ireland operate a separate subsidiary in the UK. They are both well capitalised and have high capital requirements set by the UK Prudential Regulation Authority, with which we interact along with our ECB colleagues. From a capital adequacy perspective, we are satisfied they have sufficient capital at this stage.