Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

In a system that has more than 700,000 mortgages, most of them actually work, if I can use that term. The ones that do not work absolutely deserve our attention and we wish to make sure that consumer interests are protected. However, it would be harsh to say the system is dysfunctional. Certainly, if one takes a historical perspective and looks at what was happening in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and so on compared to now, while it may be hard to do, we must be a bit fair to the banks and say they have made some improvements. I think "dysfunctional" is too harsh. The need for progress and modernisation and the need to improve the customer focus and to ensure that policies and practices promoted by the Irish Banking Culture Board are actually seen through, all of that is good stuff. As I stated at the beginning of today's committee meeting, the system is changing. We notice that banks are trying to respond to this change. Sometimes, they may not be doing that as well as we as consumers would like, never mind as regulators. A lot of the incidents that have been raised and that we are talking about today, such as Anglo Irish Bank, etc. are from ten years ago. My own view is that in ten years' time, the financial and banking system will look different to what it does today. It is different to what it was ten years ago and it will be different in ten years' time.