Ms Derville Rowland:

There is a lot in what the Deputy had to say. The only reason we are here is to work for customers in the public interest. It is the reason the team and I turn up to work every day. I acknowledge that this should not have happened and customers should never have been put in this position, but the Central Bank did a lot of work before this examination was put in place to strengthen the policy framework, to get tracker mortgages returned to more than 7,000 people and to stop tracker mortgages being taken from people. When I was director of enforcement, I challenged the ombudsman's decisions.

In the case of Permanent TSB, we front-ran the consumer redress principles in the course of the enforcement investigation, precisely because there was litigation in place and we knew we had to act on behalf of customers because we were concerned, particularly about the impact on people who might lose their homes. We could see that despite every effort that was being made, more was needed. This extraordinary examination was necessitated and has been done and more than 2 million accounts have been put in place. The Central Bank is a learning organisation. It is right that we reflect on how to strengthen our approach to supervision. Lessons have been learned. No doubt, we can learn more over time and we will do so because it is right that we always iterate to act to best practice.

We have strengthened our own approach to supervision with the consumer protection risk assessment model that is more structured and intrusive. We have strengthened our approach to focusing on the financial services companies that pose the most risk to consumers, these being the big banks with which we all interact and which sell us the most products in their daily lives. From where I sit - I am sure Ms Cunningham and Ms McEvoy will support me in this - our job is to serve customers, to make sure that we do that job to the best of our technical abilities, to learn at all times and to strengthen our models of supervision. Responsibility for this matter rests with the lenders because this level of intrusive supervision was necessitated by their conduct.