Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to explore two further points. We have heard about the mortgage tracker scandal and other issues in terms of how the banking sector has behaved. Given that the State is still a key investor in the sector, will the witnesses explain the safeguards the Department employs in terms of its decision making? I am talking about, for example, potentially recommending a discontinuation of loss relief in respect of corporation tax for the banking sector. That represents a huge asset for taxation on the balance sheet and, in theory, makes our banking system more valuable for investment. Given its status as key investor, for the State to get its money back out of the banking sector, it is in its interest that the banking sector be as valuable as it can be.

My second question relates to non-performing loans, NPLs, and the power of the Minister vis-à-visthe Department in a situation where, say, the CEO from one of the main banks argues that the bank is under pressure from the Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM, to reduce its non-performing loans. Where a lot of people are caught up in these NPLs and some of them have split mortgages, one bank may have a totally different interpretation from another bank as to what a non-performing loan is. As a member of the finance committee, I saw on several occasions that witnesses from the main banks differed in their adjudication of what constituted a non-performing loan where people had signed agreements and got their mortgage split etc. I am a little confused as to how the State manages the decision-making process in terms of safeguarding those competing interests.