Mr. Ed Sibley:

I met the representatives, or certainly some of the representatives. I know there is a separate court case involving different tied agents. They made some allegations around pressurised selling which we have looked into, and I responded to the committee's letter in December. They also wrote to the committee, to us and to the Minister for Finance in January with testimony about these allegations. I am slightly limited in what I can say, but I am being as expansive as I can be. Looking at what has been alleged, the type of investment products that were being distributed through the EBS tied agents, the risks associated with them, the controls that are in place both from an EBS perspective and from the perspective of the provider, which was Irish Life, the level of complaints that we have seen come through and any evidence of detriment, we do not see that there has been mis-selling. Clearly, there were cultural issues there and there is pressure on selling, but I do not see evidence of detriment or of mis-selling of those investment products, which are Irish Life investment products.