Mr. Bernard Sheridan:

What I am saying is that our hands are tied to some extent in respect of some charges but not in respect of the majority of charges. When we assess each notification, we take into account the impact on customers as well as the commercial justification. I agree that any increase is not welcomed but we do not have the luxury of saying we cannot allow any increase. That is not what the legislation provides for. We must consider the reason why the increase is being sought. We tried to do that by looking in particular at the impact on personal customers. That is where we have used the profiles to help us discover the outcome.

One can agree or disagree but the impact of charges on individual consumers is the need for a couple of hundred euro per annum to operate an account. That is in circumstances where we put information that the person is struggling and it is going out of all the charges and surcharge interest into the model.