Ms Francesca McDonagh:

Absolutely. It is a pleasure to see the Deputy here and I look forward to our meeting. We do not have a rule that we just apply blindly. We look at applications on a case-by-case basis. What is important to us is to approve a mortgage or a loan that is sustainable for the individual. In terms of people who are in receipt of some form of income support that we would see as temporary or is in a sector that is temporarily impacted by, for example, lockdown, if there are other sources of income in the family we would always look at assessing that on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the underlying mortgage repayment is sustainable for them, not just in the next three months but in the long term. There is not a hard and fast rule on it; it is case-by-case.

I talked earlier to one of the Deputy's colleagues about the progress being made in mortgage growth in terms of market share and the €2.1 billion drawdown of new mortgages in 2020. I did not mention the absolute number but that is 9,200 individuals. The majority of those would be first-time buyers. Some of them would have been in receipt of EWSS or equivalent income supports. It is case-by-case.