Professor Philip Lane:

This committee has played a helpful role and I acknowledge that. As I have said repeatedly, the Central Bank operates on a confidential basis with the banks and often we cannot disclose information. This committee has been incredibly helpful in shining a public spotlight on the issue, especially with the testimony of those who were harmed by the tracker scandal and the testimony of various representatives from the banks. We learned quite a lot when we heard how they talked to this committee. This committee has been very helpful but it is also the case that behind all of that, the mechanics of how this is happening is through the work of the Central Bank. In October, when we had the interaction with the Minister, the outcome was that the banks were reminded of the need to comply with our examination. The framework has been our examination, which we designed. Essentially, that has been consistent throughout and has led to this outcome. This committee has played a very important role but, essentially, it reinforced the process that was already in place and which remains in place, namely, our examination.