Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I wish to ask questions on three topics: profits and profitability, the vulture funds, and the workers and their treatment.

On profits and profitability, is the bank withdrawing from the Irish market because it is unprofitable - profits are not being made in the market - or is it withdrawing because sufficient profits are not being made from Ulster Bank's operations in Ireland? I understand a sum of €3.5 billion in surplus capital has been transferred by the bank to NatWest over the course of the last four years, approximately. I would like to hear how the management justifies the exit from the Irish market and all that means in terms of precarity for over 1 million customers, the communities serviced by 88 branches and nearly 3,000 workers. How can the pressure being placed on all those people - customers, communities and workers - be justified when €3.5 billion in surplus capital has been transferred to the UK operation over the last four years?

What discussions have been had or contacts made with the vulture funds concerning the sale of the bank, or any portion of it, since the process began? I have a very specific question. Whatever discussions have taken place in the past, I ask for a commitment that from this point on the bank will give a commitment to the people that it will not sell the bank, or any portion of the bank or its operations to a vulture fund or funds. Are the management willing to give that commitment to the committee today?

On the workforce, the 2,800 affected workers have been treated appallingly by the bank. One level upon which the appalling treatment can be measured is the negative impact of recent events on the mental health of the workforce. Would the management accept and will it comment on the adverse mental effects this saga has had on those workers? Does the management accept that the way this is playing out has had an adverse effect on the mental health of those workers? There are compulsory redundancies lined up and whatever about next year, I ask the management to comment on this and give a commitment that there will not be any compulsory redundancies in this process. Those are my questions.