Dr. Robert Kelly:

I thank the Deputy for the question. I will be brutally honest and say I am not the person closest to the issues, but I have a general understanding from conversations within the bank. As far as I know, the Governor and senior colleagues will not appear before this committee, but before the Oireachtas joint committee on finance. They will be more capable of speaking to this. My understanding of the prospect at issue is that we are the competent authority under EU legislation for approving these. There is a legal basis across three things, namely, completeness, stability and consistency. The reality is that unless we do not see across the three of those aspects a legal basis not to approve, then we do not actually have a choice. We would not have a choice in a legal context to not do this. We need a legal basis to refuse approval. If, for example, we had EU fiscal sanctions, that would amount to a reason not to do the process. As the Deputy said, it is essentially the issuer's choice as to which country they come to within the EU. This is a Brexit outcome to a large extent, whereby they were issued through the UK before Brexit and that has now moved to Ireland. I do not have a huge amount more detail, but that is my understanding of it. It is actually a legal requirement. Unless we see a legal basis not to approve it, it is not something we can do.