Ms Francesca McDonagh:

We received feedback from customers and other stakeholders that the amount we had set, €250, at the time for independent financial and legal advice was too low. We were not trying to save money or do something that was seen to be inadequate and responded in a very agile way to that feedback and increased the amount in December, a matter of days or weeks after we got the feedback, from €250 to €500 for buy-to-let and to €750 for owner-occupied. We were very quick to respond. We are giving this to customers who had got the independent financial and legal advice amount when it was lower in January.

It is an example of where there was not one single framework agreed across the industry that everyone was going to do the same thing and debate whether that would have been a good idea. I cannot speak for other banks but we did what we thought was appropriate. We got feedback that one element was lower and quickly responded to that and increased it.