Mr. Ed Sibley:

It is not for me to justify as such; I am just trying to explain it. There is also a factor of competition. Many other eurozone countries have a more competitive banking market, with more players in the market than is the case in Ireland. What we can see, as some of those fundamentals have improved, is that the mortgage market is becoming more competitive in Ireland than it was two, three or four years ago. There are positives in that we can see that mortgage rates for new loans are coming down and there is definitely more competition than there was two, three and four years ago, as the Senator will know. However, to respond to her second point, there are also risks around that in that we are seeing differentiation for different products between the rates new borrowers are on for shortish-term fixed rate mortgages relative to existing customers who are typically on variable rate products.

That was one of the issues I was pointing out regarding the culture in banks. We need to make sure they are not just doing what is legal but that they are also being consistent and trustworthy in how they are treating their customers over the long term. I am not sure that is necessarily consistent with what they have been saying, so there is further work to be done in that area.

We have been pushing hard to improve and to make sure that people are aware as possible of the benefits that may accrue from switching from an old variable rate to a new product. Clearly, a borrower has to decide that he or she wants to move from a variable rate to a fixed-rate product but thousands of people could make significant savings by switching.