Mr. John Trethowan:

I certainly think some sort of pre-filtering must be going on. The sanction percentages we are getting are very high. I think the loans are being casually refused at the bank counters before they get into the system, or else some sort of pre-filtering is happening. The level of sanction activity that is being reported to us is very high in percentage terms. Deputy Tóibín also asked about the share of the market enjoyed by each of the banks that are left. When I started out in 2010, I reckoned that the two pillar banks had approximately 60% of the market, Ulster Bank had between 10% and 15% of the market and the rest of the foreign banks had the rest of the market. The concentration of the market is now much more intense. The two pillar banks are probably carrying 80% of the market.