Ms Dara Deering:

In the short note, we were just trying to address what we see. What we see is exactly to the Chairman's point in that, in the vast majority of cases, the local authorities are insisting that a cash bond be provided. What can we do as a lender? We can, as part of the assessment, make sure our builders and developers can get access to the cash to provide the cash bond. That is what we were trying to clarify in the note in question. We understand there is an historical aspect but we have obviously been funding new developments only from 2019, with the vast majority having cash bonds in place.

On the point on small developments, I would love to see more applications for small developments because we have adequate funding available to support small and medium-sized builders in every county in Ireland. I would love to see more developments. We will try to do our bit to ensure there is awareness that we have the funding available.