Mr. John Trethowan:

To clarify, that table relates to the internal appeals within the banks, before borrowers come to the review office. When setting up the process, we said we would not deal as a first port of call with SMEs. They have the right of appeal within the two banks - and, indeed, Ulster Bank has adopted that system as good practice - so that one has a second pair of eyes in the bank. That is what those statistics refer to.

We have handled 215 appeals that have come to the review office. Of those, we asked the bank to make the loan in 120 cases and upheld the bank's decision in 95 cases, so the figure for overturning banks' decisions is about 57%.