Mr. Ed Sibley:

There is quite a lot in that question. To start with, in dealing with the mortgage arrears, first and foremost, being focused on mortgage arrears for many years and making sure that the challenges for borrowers and for the banks have been dealt with in a sustainable way, the approach the bank has consistently taken is to drive banks to engage with borrowers and to ensure that they have a full suite of options for dealing with borrowers, through forbearance, engagement, restructuring and using their balance sheets. After that, the focus has been on ensuring that are engaged in terms of other parts of the safety net, such as the Insolvency Service of Ireland. Nothing I said a couple of weeks ago that is inconsistent with what we have said or the approach we have taken previously. What we have had to is continue to push banks, this happened from 2012 and 2013 all the way through, to ensure that they are thinking about the full suite of options and really trying to engage with all their customers to make sure that they are taking account of people's needs and addressing their problems so long as the they are willing to engage. That approach has paid dividends. There are a significant number of mortgages that have been restructured from the peak of the mortgage arrears crisis in 2013. In terms of the level, there would be more than 100,000 mortgage accounts restructured, mostly in the banking system.

What I have also consistently said is that loan sales may be part of the solution in terms of the banks' resilience. That does not stop the Central Bank's work in terms of the protections that are in place for borrowers and the work that we do in terms of engaging with the lender, regardless of whether it is a bank.

What I pushed in my remarks - and what I continue to push, privately as well as publicly - is the need to make sure that the loan sales are not seen as the only way to deal with these problems. In a couple of instances, there are banks that have eased off a little in terms of looking at restructuring or that continue to try to engage and that are more prone to defaulting to thinking about loan sales.

It is wholly appropriate that we would continue to push banks to be engaged or for us to be looking to restructure as required, as well as potentially thinking about loan sales. We will continue to engage on this point. I am very happy to deal with the other points Deputy Doherty makes around the customer relationships and culture, if he wants, but I think the thrust was more on loan sales.