Mr. Brendan Burgess:

That is the legal position. If I have a contract with Danske Bank and that contract is taken over by Proteus, that contract remains unchanged. Given Danske Bank had cheap trackers, Proteus cannot turn around and say, "Brendan, we are changing your interest rate", because I will say, "No, read the contract. It says ECB plus 0.8%. I am paying my mortgage and I will continue paying my mortgage until the 20 years is up". There is nothing Proteus can do about that. If I am in arrears and I have an arrangement with my bank, AIB or Bank of Ireland will probably extend the arrangement after three years - typically, a split mortgage would be an example. However, the concern is that if it goes to a vulture fund, as Mr. Hall has pointed out, the vulture fund would not be as flexible in extending an arrangement. Usually, a contract is for three years and when that is up, as with a split mortgage, it could just be thrown out by the vulture fund.