Mr. Des Carville:

I will go back to a point that might be quite relevant to the thrust of the Deputy's question. First of all, if a borrower feels aggrieved with the original financial institution, they can make a complaint to the FSPO. These institutions are all regulated by the Central Bank. If a loan is then sold to an investment fund, the services are under the auspices of the CCMA, the code of conduct of mortgage arrears, which is policed by the Central Bank. There are checks and balances in place now that perhaps were not as strong in the past.

On the future of lending and borrowing going forward, I go back to November 2014 when the Single Supervisory Mechanism was put in place. This is part of the European Central Bank. It has introduced a whole different level of banking supervision and regulation within Europe that is quite different from what we had.

That regulation is quite intrusive and rightly so. Bank boards have also changed completely. The risk appetite is completely different. An awful lot more procedures and policies are in place within the system here and internationally to make sure borrowers are better protected when they take out a loan.