Mr. Dermot Sreenan:

I thank Deputy Doherty. We have covered some of this ground already. With regard to the comments mentioned by the Deputy, MABS addresses these through social policy submissions. We made such a submission in the past year with respect to the mortgage measures framework, where we spoke about the loan book being sold on to non-banking entities.

Our opening address is based on the credit services directive which is coming in and the submission, which the Deputy will know about, was due today. We addressed the issue in that way.

The core business of MABS, however, is in delivering the independent confidential money advice and budgeting service throughout the country and, as much as people are aware of it, to a certain extent we do not recognise the value of what we have in that regard.

We have dealings with what we prefer to call the nonbank entities, because we enter into bilateral negotiations and talks with them in respect of trying to secure affordable and sustainable repayments with those entities. We have been told by the Central Bank that it is the ultimate regulator in this and that the bank is not prepared to fix interest rates.

We can elaborate on the extent of the problem and can look for meaningful and positive engagement from the nonbank entities. I have said before that we have had positive results in respect of advocating on behalf of clients with nonbank entities. We have also had positive results with the banks and we are hoping to replicate that with the nonbank entities.

I also read to the committee the timeline of a specific case which speaks to the level of inflexibility that we are getting from the nonbank entities in respect of dealing with what we believe is affordable and sustainable, and on their passing on of interest rates.