Mr. Richie Boucher:

I will go through the questions as quickly as I can but try to be comprehensive with respect to the committee. There is some reduction in credit in the country. There are banks exiting the country. It is obvious that there are banks exiting the country and the number of banks is shrinking. Bank of Ireland is not exiting. I cannot overemphasise what we have done, with support from the taxpayers, who have been repaid. We have raised the capital and we are funding ourselves. We have reduced our costs while investing in our businesses but the capital that has been provided to us from the private sector does not come from people who felt sorry for us or had to deal with a black hole. They are people who believe there is an opportunity in Ireland. My requirement and that of my colleagues is to deploy that capital with the opportunity that is in Ireland. How we will be judged by our shareholders – the people I work for – is the deployment of our capital, taking advantage of opportunities we believe are available to us in this market. The SME sector is a key sector for us. That is at the heart of our strategy. We have been consistent about it and that is what we have done. All the restructuring and everything we have done is to bring us into this position today because we believe there is opportunity.

To turn to some of the statistics Deputy Tóibín and Deputy Calleary inquired about, of the €4 billion of new and increased lending – it is not roll-over debt – we do not make money until we provide new and increased credit. Utilisation was around about 50%. That reflects some of the new and increased lending. Some of it is new and increased overdraft facilities, receivable financing or stock financing facilities, where one would expect a level of fluctuation. What we have seen happen over the past couple of years is increased utilisation of, for example, the receivable financing lines that we provide. Increased utilisation has moved from roughly the late 40s three years ago to about 60% utilisation of the average invoice discounting line.