Mr. David Hall:

I was hoping to get through the whole meeting without disagreeing with Mr. Burgess, but be careful what you wish for.

As Mr. Burgess mentioned, the Central Bank made decisions on what the banks had to do. Serious questions arise as to what decisions were made and whether radical restructures could have been done by the banks. Some were done successfully and different banks had different restructures of the same name but with different terms and conditions. History will judge whether the vulture funds were required and, if so, why.

Ultimately, we are speaking about are humans. They are called "customers", but they react and behave like humans. Many of us have engaged with lenders. We have had good and bad engagements. This is part of the failure of regulation and consumer protection. It is an abject failure of monitoring. This should be a production line. There should be no favouritism, disadvantage or advantage. This is an academic exercise. The world has changed again in the past ten years, in that it is very expensive to live in Ireland now and there are even greater challenges. None of us has the confidence to know whether a lender, vulture fund or bank of any shape or size will go through an engagement process from start to finish in a timely, efficient and just manner.

Regarding corn flakes and percentages, my concern about people obsessing about what price was paid is that it distracts them from engaging with the relevant organisations, be it the IMHO, MABS, the Insolvency Service or individual practitioners, to get the help that is needed. There is help and there are solutions. Mortgage-to-rent is a solution that we have advocated for and have gone through. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has decided to seek expressions of interest from more vulture funds in buying these homes despite this failing previously. It is a bizarre decision to make. Is there an alternative to mortgage-to-rent? We have affordable housing under Housing for All. Is it the case that some of these mortgages could be bought by housing bodies, with rents set at affordable home levels so that the homes are not lost?

Serious questions need to be answered, but as Mr. Burgess and Mr. Kissane have mentioned, thousands of people are affected today. We need to consider realistic solutions that deal with them today. There are solutions, there is help and people need to be encouraged to get it, but we need to take action and regulate the regulator to ensure that these vultures do not put their claws any deeper into Irish customers.