Ms Francesca McDonagh:

To answer that question, I will take a step back and provide the Deputy with some context on the process we went through to address this as quickly as possible in recent months. I started in the role on 2 October 2017. As I mentioned in my opening statement, it was evident that this was a major issue. That is from my interaction with the board, the Minister for Finance and the Central Bank and from reading the newspapers and hearing the feedback as to the impact it was having on people. It was very apparent that I needed to understand the detail of this within the first fortnight of arriving. I looked at the requirements of the Central Bank's examination which required banks to look at the legal obligations and regulations around customer protection as well as at what reasonable outcome a typical customer could expect. I looked at the legal aspect and the detail of the numbers, but I also looked at the reasonable expectations of customers. I put myself in their shoes with my team and we looked at specific cases. While I cannot, obviously, disclose names in a public forum, we looked at names, the circumstances and what was going on in people's lives where we had the available information and we looked at the offers we were making and the correspondence they had received. We went through that customer journey.

I have spoken to customers and I have listened to their descriptions of the impact it has had on them. There has been a concerted effort since we included the additional 6,000 to give the benefit of the doubt to customers to do our best to get this to a resolution to their satisfaction. The redress and compensation framework is for clarity and for many customers it will be in line with their expectations. For those who feel it is not fair, we have an appeals panel in place. That has started recently and customers are entitled - we encourage and give them information - to pursue an appeal where they feel they have not been treated fairly.