Mr. Antoine Mac Donncha:

The primary difficulty with that approach would be that if we were to introduce a provision of that nature, anybody who is looking to purchase any assets from Bank of Ireland thereafter would have to satisfy himself or herself that those assets were not part of this bundle of mortgages, for example, that transferred in from ICS, and that would inevitably lead to enormous complications down the line. If one tries to differentiate a particular class of assets such as that which will be transferred into a larger pool, one will give rise inevitably to legal complications. That is aside entirely from the fact that would, I suggest, inevitably give rise to issues as to whether Bank of Ireland would be well advised to seek to transfer from ICS into Bank of Ireland to invoke that sort of restriction because of the complications or contamination effect it would be likely to have on the rest of the bank's pool of assets.

The issue of whether it would be legally possible is primarily a matter for the Attorney General, not necessarily us, to consider, but it is clear that it would certainly give rise to complexities if we were to attempt to do it.

It is worth bearing in mind that what is being proposed here is to effectively transfer from one regulated financial service provider to another. That is what the legislation is giving effect to.