Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

Again, for the reasons I explained to the Deputy, we are not just using commercial sensitivity as some smoke screen to getting in to a discussion on it. The Deputy will be aware that the NPE part of the banking industry, especially for high NPL banks such as AIB, is of key interest to the market in general terms. It is, therefore, very much a commercially sensitive item.

With regard to any portfolio sale, as it journeys through and as work is done on those potential portfolio sales, they will change and they will change significantly as they go through the process. To actually start to communicate in the early stage in the process would be premature because one is not sure how it will conclude in the final stages. These are the two parts to the reason we are not getting in to particular portfolio sales.