Ms Isolde Goggin:

I would put forward two explanations: first, risk; and, second, lack of competition. On risk, one has to look at what is happening in the mortgage market now in the context of what happened in the past. We had a massive housing boom and a crash. There are many non-performing loans still out there and we are still struggling through the effects of that, with repossessions and so on. People are looking at the Irish market and saying, "This is risky, so I need to price my mortgages at a premium compared to markets which have been more stable and which have not been through this boom and bust".