Mr. Jeremy Masding:

There are three things I want to say in answer to the Chairman's original set of comments, and I want to make sure that they are separated.

First, in the opening remarks, we were very clear that we made errors, there were failures in the bank and that we were very sorry. I have made that statement at every public event since 2015, including before going to the Minister, and I repeat that to the Chairman.

Second, on a separate point and I hope without causing confusion, since 2015 we have had 200 people out of a total staff population of just over 2,000 focusing on this work. We looked at every single mortgage contract over a two and half year period. Each of those customers and those contracts went through a set of gates to determine whether they were an impacted customer. In Permanent TSB, that programme was done in a systematic fashion.

Third, and a point I must reiterate, we do not make payments to customers until they give us permission to do so because we are not allowed to do so. We would encourage, as we do at all public events, anybody who has an offer to please send it back to us and we will make the payment. As Mr. Groarke has said, that does not disallow the customer from going through the process of appeal, which includes our own appeals process, the Financial Services Ombudsman, FSO, and the courts. Again, I commend to the committee members that if any of their constituents remain suspicious, as I am sure some of them will do, to please send the offer back. We will make the payments and it does not deny any customer their right to avail of the appeals process.

In summary, we did harm, we apologise, and we tried to do the programme to the standards set by the Central Bank. My comments about Permanent TSB were around the ways that we did the programme. In terms of offers, I encourage all customers please to send back the offer so that we can make the payments.