Mr. Mark Bourke:

I will say a number of things. First, I apologise for any frustration that members feel because we did not in any way intend to create frustration. We did come here to talk about our approach to our plan to reduce non-performing exposures, NPEs, and that predominantly it is still about individual restructuring and that remains the case. I will come back to that in a moment.

The other point is that we have made, despite any press statements or otherwise, no public statement on any particular portfolio sales. There may be a lot of potentially precise information, or rather information that looks precise, but we have not made any statement. Our reason for that kind of approach is that until we are at an advanced position, the potential sale changes massively in terms of its shape. What we did come to do was to say we continue to look for engagement from individuals where we can restructure. We have restructured 95% of the €29 billion we have restructured through individual restructurings, and we continue to seek to do that. It is the lack of engagement that thwarts us from doing every single client and individually restructuring them.

We have written off €13 billion of debt in the four-year period so I apologise for any frustrations felt. We have no public statement despite all the various statements that have been made in the press. We will reflect on the committee's frustration and attempt to respond but we did want to respond in the context of our overall plan, which we must achieve.