Mr. Padraic Kissane:

I will make one point before I pass to Mr. Burgess. With regard to the capping - which is the word I would use – of interest rates, I would urge much caution. We are trying to get more entities to enter this market, not exit. Looking at limiting the ability of an entrant on what it can look at as terms of mortgages and restrict - which is not this or any other case - the only thing that should happen in this country regarding homeowners is to give full-term fixed rates at the outset. That way, people will know from day one what their mortgage will cost and have the flexibility there is in the US that if you trade up, you do not have a massive penalty for breaking from that fixed rate. Give full-term fixed rates. That is where it should end. Let us then see which entities are interested in that. I do not know in this country how we cannot have a 20-year fixed rate if you buy a 20-year mortgage. You have it if you rent a council house. The rent is set and off you go for the 20 years. You do not have it with mortgages – the biggest undertaking that any family will undertake. Put certainty on the cost of that and it is the interest rate at the time. Remember, in 1988, interest rates were 15% and people were paying it.

I want to make one final point about the connectivity and shoddiness of the taking out of mortgages on family homes that did not have a portfolio split from a firm and are now with a vulture. One can imagine the difficulty that is posing for any development of the farmland, etc.