Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are very welcome to the committee. On the desirability of people in Ireland being able to buy homes, in particular younger people on moderate wages, the witnesses are probably aware that the Government has a scheme to give couples with an income of €75,000 or single people with incomes of €50,000 access to State-sponsored funds. One of the conditions of that funding is that the applicants should have gone to a financial provider on a couple of occasions and been refused loans. I acknowledge that the bank cannot be absolutely accurate on the following question, because people explore options, go away and come back over a lengthy period. However, how many people does the Bank of Ireland turn down and can it share with us the reason for doing so? I take on board what Ms McDonagh said about wanting to be able to lend into the housing market. As one of the biggest banks in Ireland, how many people inquire about entering a mortgage and what proportion of applicants are turned down? While in some cases the bank might simply say that a person does not qualify and should come back when he or she has done this, that and the other, can Ms McDonagh share that information with us?