Mr. Stephen Groarke:

I have some comments. We went into this in great detail in the last meeting. Although our representations to the SSM are public, we have been making similar representations to the SSM since January 2017. We only got an answer in April this year, at the same time as Deputy Pearse Doherty's colleague in the European Parliament. We did not take this lightly. There was no other choice until that point and until these capital market options emerged. They were classified as NPLs. The only way at that time for us to deal with one sixth of our NPLs, which is what split mortgages represent, was to sell them. It is only since then that clarification has come from the regulator and the capital markets options have emerged.