Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 April 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Permanent TSB and AIB

12:35 pm

Mr. David Duffy:

I do not have a specific time because it is entirely at the discretion of the Minister in terms of timing and the associated pricing. Fundamentally, for any discussion to be viable, we have to create an investable bank, so the timing for that subset is to deliver by the end of this year a fully profitable bank that can demonstrate publicly that it is adequately capitalised, post all the stress tests. Then we are in a position in which, as the bank with the largest balance sheet and the largest lender, it would look attractive as a profitable bank. When he was in Davos, the Minister flagged - I am not disclosing anything inappropriate - that he would like to test the price of AIB's equity before 2016 - that is, 2015. The partial answer to the Chairman's question is probably that the process could begin, at the Minister's discretion, in 2015 and thereafter, and then the timing will be out of our hands. Our job is to make sure it is a well-run bank.