Mr. John Hogan:

-----in that what drove the difficulties we had at that stage was excessive credit availability in the housing market. In fact, on the mortgage rules the Chairman mentioned, while there has been some loosening by the Central Bank of the rules, they have served to be a very effective intervention in the market in terms of downward pressure on pricing and so on. They have offered some level of protection against changes in the past that caused such difficulties for us.

The Chairman started by asking about help-to-buy and we now have some more information to hand on that if it helps. I think I mentioned €87 million as the number I had in my head, but €83 million is what we had in the budget documentation as the full-year cost and yield. There is a footnote stating the full cost of the measure is estimated to be in the region of €175 million, but because the help-to-buy scheme has been in place for a number of years, it is already in our tax base, so what we are looking at is the incremental cost year on year from the decision to extend the scheme.