Ms Derville Rowland:

The first question was about the stance adopted by the lenders in the course of the tracker mortgage examination. I do not believe I need to tell this committee in view of the fact that it was active and part of the national level pressure that was brought to bear on the lenders. I took up this role on 1 September 2017 and I appeared before the committee shortly thereafter. I had previously been director of enforcement. I set up the redress scheme with Permanent TSB, which was a precursor to this. New in that role, I was utterly dissatisfied with the stance of the lenders. We made that public in a report at the time, and I remember appearing before this committee and answering questions. With fantastic support from colleagues and the team in the Central Bank, I spent many weeks and months in challenging meetings with the lenders, giving them the full benefit of our analysis and views about who should be in and out. Members will recall that we wrote a report stating that the lenders had decided to resolve the disputed groups in favour of our judgment. I am sad to say that it appeared to take a level of public opprobrium and pressure from a number of angles for them to reach that view. That should never have been the case.

The key leading risk in cultural indicators that we saw as a precursor to that was the fact that the team in the Central Bank had to do more than 200 turns of the documents in the compensation award levels. The level of co-operation was absolutely not where it should have been. That is why we are certain about a continued focus on demanding that they deliver different cultural standards. A culture is nothing but one's value set and how one behaves. We will continue to hold them to account in that regard. I have told the committee that I am a realist, not an optimist, and we believe that an individual accountability framework is necessary to strengthen the position further. It can been seen on the cutting edge of leading international regulatory frameworks, including the Financial Stability Board, which recently stated that a key feature of misconduct scandals was a lack of individual accountability.

Regarding our comments on co-operation, we have been deliberate in sharing that perspective with the committee. In some of the enforcement investigations, what we have experienced is a slow pace and long answers with no delivery of the goods that we want. We have an able team that can hold lenders that indulge in that kind of tactic with us to account. It is not something that we tolerate. If there is a lack of co-operation in enforcement investigations and that is not remedied in the course of the investigation, we will apply to the High Court to demand that we get what we need. We do that where we need to. Matters have been resolved earlier than that step being taken, but to push us near to having to take it is unacceptable. If enforcement cases conclude, an issue we take into account in penalties is co-operation. I will ask my colleague, Ms Cunningham, to say a few words about that.