Mr. David Hall:

The number in long-term mortgage arrears with vulture funds is just over 21,000. That is the most vulnerable cohort of people. There is a handful of people who have stuck their head in the sand, as is the way of the world, out of pressure, stress and distress. There is a smaller number of messers. Ultimately, there is a number of people who are very vulnerable. There is a narrative that there have not been many repossessions. Statistically, that is true. There have been between 3,500 and 4,000 court order repossessions. There have been 6,000 voluntary surrenders, which end in the same way. A lot of the mortgage arrears stuff has turned to housing now. Nobody is interested where they are goosed and engaging with a lender who says they would like them to put their house up for sale or surrender their home. Where are they going to live? Now the housing situation has taken over dramatically as a major consequence, such as it might not have been eight years ago. There is a significant vulnerable cohort of people there. I cannot see vultures giving people free houses. I might be wrong. I am talking about the information given to the Central Bank by the vulture funds. This is very important. It is on the Central Bank's website. It is not David Hall's analysis. There is a cohort of people, including lenders, mainstream banks and vulture funds, that were asked a direct question by the Central Bank. They were asked to set out how many of the people they have engaged with as distressed customers they believed will lose their homes. They replied by saying that the figure in question was 16,000, or two thirds of the 24,000. They went a step further and gave details of how many would lose by court order repossession, which was five sixths. A further one sixth would lose their homes by voluntary surrender. That is forensic detail of assessment. From memory, the standard financial statements of 11,551 individuals were assessed, and 12,338 additional ones were deemed unco-operative. I would not set much store by a bank deeming someone to be unco-operative, let alone a vulture fund. However, there are hard data there and there are exceptionally vulnerable people at risk of losing their homes.