Ms Margaret Hayes:

When Mr. Masding, the bank's chief executive officer, was before the committee, he went into some detail about the individual criteria used to determine the rate. He mentioned not just the blended cost, but operational expenditure, contributions to impairments and meeting the cost of impairments. We are working assiduously on the operation expenditure side. Any reductions in this area will ultimately go towards giving the bank greater scope around interest rate reductions.

Hopefully, there will be ongoing improvements in the funding position and, as sovereign yields decrease and begin to affect yields on bank debt, the market will open up. As we work on operational expenditure and seek to obtain the most efficient funding through the market and any other source that is open to us, we will continue to work on arrears. We hope that by investing more and by working intensively through the MARS process towards mortgage resolutions, we will generate more scope financially to consider reductions in rates.