Mr. Ed Sibley:

It dates back to a completely different time. In 1991 approximately 60% or almost two thirds of mortgage loans were with building societies. I was not around at that time and not many people who were around at that time are still with the Central Bank but I understand that there was a concern around some of the benefits associated with having a loan from a building society in the context of the demutualisation that was happening in that period. I think that was in the minds of those who were setting out the code. The mortgage finance market today is clearly very different today and is much bigger. It is many multiples of the size it was back in 1991 and there are no operating building societies in the State now.

Securitisation, the use of collateral, did not feature in the 1990s. It is a big feature now. The sophistication of the euro system support is there and, indeed, is acting as a lender of last resort. Using mortgage collateral has all changed.

As I understand it, we looked at the code back in 2012 in our review of the consumer protection code and decided at that point that we did not want to put it on a statutory basis. My personal view is that we should have removed it. I do not believe it is good practice for us to have voluntary codes that are not being complied with. We should not have them. We should have dealt with it then, but we did not. Our view is that it is being superseded by the nature of how the financial system has changed and, importantly, in the protections that are in place regardless of whether one has a loan with a bank or a retail credit firm.