Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

I will address it in two parts, if I may. An issue has been raised regarding the main company name, which is Allied Irish Banks, plc. In a small number of cases — one can imagine the volume of cases — the comma was left out. I will return to the question of the other entities in a moment. What happens when the comma is left out? From the bank's perspective or from a litigation point of view, it is an error. When the bank goes to court, there is first a request that the change be made. The court satisfies itself that the debt is owed, that it is owed to the appropriate entity, that the issue is, for all intents and purposes, a clerical one, and that the bank is not trying to create a situation whereby the debt would be owed to a different entity.

In the cases that I have looked at, the court gets to that remedy in a reasonably straightforward fashion, moves on from that point and is able to deal with that because it is able to satisfy itself that this money is owing to the entity in situ. We have multiple entities in the group. Part of that was due to the merger of EBS in 2011. My colleague would have talked through the volume of companies at the last meeting but I will address the different legal entities. We will have EBS itself as an entity, EBS Mortgage Finance and AIB Mortgage Bank, where some of the mortgage loans are domiciled and therefore legal cases are taken under those legal entities. The specific issue with the comma, as my colleague would have spoken about at the last meeting, arises in the instance that I highlighted.