Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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I want to begin by referring briefly to the point Professor Lane made in response to the Chair regarding mortgage securitisation. He mentioned it was not a major part of what went on. I want him to elaborate on that, with particular attention to the Central Bank's bulletin in July 2011, when it indicated that at the end of 2007, 12% of mortgages were securitised and were off balance sheet, and this accounted for €17 billion in loans which had moved off the balance sheets of the larger credit institutions. Time and again in the documents presented to us by Professor Lane, the point is emphasised that it was obvious there was a slowdown in the property market and issues in terms of bank funding. What was the reason behind the fact we had 12% of our mortgage book off balance sheet? What role would that have played?