Dr. Colin Hunt:

The pay cap has been the focus of attention, but it only affects a very small number of the nearly 24,000 staff across Bank of Ireland, AIB and PTSB, the institutions affected by the restrictions put in place a number of years ago. It is important to note that there are many financial institutions that are not subject to the restrictions.

I read earlier this week that thanks to Brexit over 100 institutions are either coming to Ireland or increasing their headcount in Ireland as they seek to continue to have access to the European marketplace post Britain's possible or probable exit from the European Union. We compete for the same pool of talent and the most acute pressure we are experiencing is typically for people in their late 20s or early 30s who are being enticed to work in other institutions because those institutions have flexibility in terms of remuneration that we do not have. We spend a considerable amount of investment on bringing high quality graduates in and training them. They become wonderful bankers and very good at relationship management and writing credit papers, but then another competing institution that is not subject to the same restrictions that we are comes along and says, "Thank you very much for that investment but we are going to offer them a bonus and other benefits" and in many cases they take the decision to leave the institution. From our perspective this cohort is key to the future sustainability of the institution because they are the future leaders of the organisation but in many cases they are being stripped out.