Professor Patrick Honohan:

I wish to put on record that I think it is wholly unsatisfactory. Now, it is a private institution. The Government has some shareholdings in it. The Central Bank has some degree of control with regard to prudence. At the moment, Bank of Ireland has several distressed debts, although fewer than others. It is dealing with the easy-to-deal-with cases which can be resolved using small modifications and term extensions. It may also be dealing with cases that are hopeless from the bank's point of view, as well as repossessions. When the bank comes to the middle and to the more complicated cases of multiple debts, there may be a certain amount of eating of words, and if there is not eating of words then an entity that consistently adopted that line would definitely fall foul of our code of conduct, which is law, or it would be unable to deliver on the targets. The tools are there. How many proposed personal insolvency arrangements has that institution rejected so far? I do not know.