Ms Sharon Donnery:

I will say a few more words in reply to the Deputy's first question on house prices. As the Governor stated, it is exactly because of those concerns that we have not loosened the measures. Yesterday, we published quite a lot of information on the scenario of what house prices would have looked like without those measures.

On the exemptions, we looked at them carefully as part of the review. We looked at the operation in the individual banks. We listened to all kinds of feedback on the exemptions, on how they are operating and on concerns about them being used up at particular points of the year. On the latter point, if people go to their banks during a particular quarter, there are no exemptions left. As the Governor stated, there is some scope for the banks to use the exemptions a bit more. The banks are not using them fully. At the same time, the Central Bank's rules are not the bank's own risk appetite. We expect the banks to also consider their risk appetite and their lending practices in terms of how they are using the rules. It may be the case that banks, for example, in the context of first-time buyers, do not necessarily want to lend over the 90% limit even though there is a small exemption above that. The risk-appetite aspect is very much up to the banks.

On the other practical issues about how the exemptions are being used, their seasonality, etc., we have looked at all that and we do not see particular problems. We would acknowledge that, two years ago, when we made amendments to the rules and they were phased in quickly, it was definitely challenging for the banks to implement those changes. They found it quite difficult to manage the utilisation of the exemptions.

I appreciate that we only published some of the information on the operation of the allowances yesterday.