Mr. Des Carville:

Thank you for that. It is a really fair point that you make. We talk about hundreds of millions and billions and it can be easy to forget that there are actual individuals behind those numbers, real cases, real people and real businesses. That is the first point I would make. The second point, which is really important, is that the legislation is not designed to change or in any way fetter a customer's ability to seek redress, whether that is through the FSPO, the Central Bank, or a legal process. The only thing that changes through the legislation is that we are trying to facilitate the orderly and efficient wind-down of the IBRC and NAMA entities.

The idea behind the resolution unit, which is accepted by everyone involved in the planning around this, is that there will potentially be quite a long tail in terms of lifespan, behind the resolution unit dealing with live litigation involving both NAMA and the IBRC, residual assets but also cases like the one the Cathaoirleach referred to. There is, with really good reason, a Bill before the Oireachtas to confirm that customers of entities that have left the market will have access to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, FSPO, going forward and in fact, that is actually happening in practice already. In cases like the one the Chairman is referring to, which sounds like a particularly horrific case although, obviously, I am not familiar with it and nor would the Department ever have access to that kind of customer information, there are still mechanisms available to people and that will continue.