Ms Jane Howard:

I apologise, but I have not seen the article to which the Chairman has referred. However, it can be put on record that I was treated very respectfully by the committee the last time I appeared before it and I have no problem at all with the way questions were addressed to me or anything else. I am sorry that I was not aware of the article, but I think I have made clear that I was treated very respectfully.

I will be joined by my colleagues in responding to the questions. Several of the questions referred to colleagues. On the issue of communication and the reference to how colleagues have been treated, the way this was communicated was not the way that anybody would have wanted. I have personally apologised to our colleagues for the fact that they have had to live with this uncertainty for five months while dealing with a pandemic and trying to serve our customers in the best way possible. During that time, I have met many colleagues and listened to their concerns. Where we have been able to address those concerns, we have done so, but the biggest concerns most people had related to wanting to know the outcome of the decision. It was that uncertainty that was causing challenges for people, as well as stress in many cases. I absolutely understand how difficult that was for our people. We have got the outcome of that decision. We got it on Friday, 19 February.

When the decision was announced, I announced three things on Friday to try to address some of the uncertainty: first, that there will be no new compulsory exits this year; second, that there will be no branch closures this year; and, third, that under the memorandum of understanding we reached with AIB, although it is only a memorandum and needs to become binding when we get to that stage, colleagues will travel with the work, to use that expression, as long as their role is mainly or wholly associated with it. That gives some degree of certainty, but I am very aware that it does not give all the certainty that people need. We are in the very early days in terms of conversations with Permanent TSB and others. Similarly, the memorandum of understanding is in its early days.

We will be engaging fully on this issue. We do not yet have all the answers, but we will be engaging with stakeholders in the coming weeks and months as we work through how to withdraw from the markets carefully and in an orderly way. Now that we have a decision, we have established regular communication sessions with colleagues. These are two-way engagement sessions. We have large-scale communications through which everybody can hear a consistent message and ask their questions. Obviously, we also have smaller groups because many people prefer to have conversations in a smaller group. That is what we have done.

I absolutely recognise how difficult this has been and still is for those affected until they understand what it means for them. One of our core objectives is to minimise the number of job losses. That is why we have reached the memorandum of understanding with AIB. It will be core to any negotiations we have with banking counterparts here. On that note, I will see if Ms McDonagh, our director of HR, wishes to add anything in terms of the welfare of our colleagues in particular.