Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 72 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Financial Regulator (Resumed)

1:40 pm

Mr. Matthew Elderfield:

We have said that when we do our audits we are prepared to adjust down the level of hitting the targets, if we believe the arrangements are not on sustainable terms. If they miss the targets we have two principal sanctions, and, for the Government-owned banks, there is a further one that is quite tough. First, we have the ability to impose capital add-ons to the banks. Second, we have said that for those mortgage solutions not done on a sustainable basis we will require the provisioning to move to a repossession level and we will insist the banks cannot assume any revenue from those mortgages other than the cost of disposing of the underlying home. That is quite a robust level of provisioning and it will come in at the end of next year.