Dr. Colin Hunt:

I am very conscious of how important it is that all the activities in which we engage from a lending perspective are sustainable and in the best interests of our customers and the best interests, ultimately, of the bank itself. We have spent the best part of ten years working to correct the consequences of poor lending decisions and poor borrowing decisions that were made in the past. At one point in time we had a total amount of non-performing exposures - "problem loans" is probably a better way of describing them - in excess of €31 billion. Today that figure is below €4 billion. We want to ensure that when we deploy our capital, when we lend money to our customers, we do so in a way that is very risk-conscious and that is appropriate from both the borrower's perspective and our perspective.