Mr. Jeremy Masding:

I will give a series of answers to those questions. The first answer is that I have explained to the committee before that my first task was to decide what alternative to present to the Minister for Finance in terms of the bank and that included liquidation, wind-up or integration with other financial services institutions. We were confident that within the organisation which we found that there was a journey towards a profitable, viable and relevant Permanent TSB. We still believe that. As one would expect we are under the spotlight, whether from our board, from the shareholder, as we were from the troika and increasingly we are under the spotlight from the European Central Bank. I can assure the Deputy that we are on track to create a viable and a vibrant banking group in the retail services sector in Ireland. I am comfortable that we are on the right track.

On the question about the stress tests, we have a strong capital base. We worked with the Central Bank last year on an asset quality review. We made changes to our provision stock as a result of that. What I do not know are the parameters of the stress test, so it is very difficult for me to answer that question.

We have a strong capital base. We await with interest the parameters of the stress test.