Ms Derville Rowland:

The consumer protection framework in place travels with the loan. All the protections of the CPC and the requirements to treat people fairly embedded in it travel with the loans and they are required to be adhered to. The protections of the code of conduct on mortgage arrears also travel with the loan and because this is an area about which there is considerable concern and because we are also concerned about the risks, we have conducted on-site inspections in the credit servicing firms, particularly focusing on the issue of people's homes and how they are being treated in compliance with the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. Given our careful scrutiny of that, I am interested in the Chairman providing us, as he said he would, with any information about requirements to pledge people's pension funds or otherwise because we will take that into account. One of the key parts of the framework is that no implementation of an instruction from an unregulated loan owner that is in breach of the regulatory requirements is permitted. If anyone acts in that way, we will take that seriously. I want to be clear that we are carefully looking at inspecting compliance with the code. One of the key foundation stones of the code of conduct on mortgage arrears relates to people's family homes - if one only owns one property, that is probably covered as well - and that requires sympathetic, speedy but respectful resolution, where possible. We do not tolerate harassing behaviours and the code provides for that. Where the Chairman has information in this regard, we would welcome it because it is something we take seriously.

We have also separately been asked to conduct a review of the code of conduct on mortgage arrears to ascertain if it is optimally effective as the problem moves on, and we are committed to this. As part of that, we are looking at the on-site inspections of their conduct, particularly with respect to family homes. We are also speaking to the Insolvency Service of Ireland to gain its insights into what is happening in its sphere and to the Money Advice & Budgeting Service, because it is important that we examine this from a number of points of view to see if anything else can be done and if the problem has moved on. We are committed to work in this area.