Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to some questions that were not answered. Does Ms Howard agree with the decision of NatWest to end Ulster Bank's presence in this State after 165 years? She had a big challenge when she came in, she knew the challenge and set about addressing it. She gave a timeframe of about four to five years and she was not given that. Did she support the decision? There were other options on the table.

I am very conscious that the words of Ms Howard and other extremely well-paid executives in Ulster Bank, as well as the press releases, are all about reassuring people. They refer to preferred options and so on. Has a direction been given by NatWest not to sell to vulture funds? Is there any discussion open with vulture funds at this point in time? If a vulture fund phoned Ulster Bank up tomorrow would the bank say it is not interested?

We have a memorandum of understanding with AIB. Did Ulster Bank make any assessment internally about the competition issues that may or may not arise, given the fact that AIB and Bank of Ireland will dominate more than 90% of the market between them? Permanent TSB does not have a memorandum of understanding. I am not looking for any commercially sensitive details, but when did engagement start with AIB and Permanent TSB? We need to build a third force in Irish banking. One of the big problems with Ulster Bank and Permanent TSB is their size and cost ratio, and the fact that they are competing with two larger entities. The capital issues we need to get a handle on are significant and the committee should ask the Central Bank and the ECB to give us a report on that. At what level did Ulster Bank begin engagement with Permanent TSB?

My final questions relate to the portfolio. I went through some figures earlier, on the size of the tracker mortgage book in particular. Have there been any expressions of interest in that? I am not asking the witnesses to disclose who the interests are at this point in time. Where do they see that going? Some would argue that the tracker mortgages are loss-making. They are not loss-making but I ask them to comment on that because there are many people out there with mortgages.

Ms Howard said nobody should panic, and I agree with that, but there are 1.1 million depositors within Ulster Bank. There is much talk of negative interest rates being applied. Ulster Bank applied negative interest rates last year and AIB and Bank of Ireland are applying negative interest rates on higher deposits of €1 million and above. There are now discussions about negative interest rates on smaller deposits, particularly given that €21 billion will need to find a home shortly. Can Ulster Bank give any reassurance to depositors that it is engaging with other lenders, in order that their deposits will not end up in negative interest accounts?