Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 1 December 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Banking Sector in Ireland: Ulster Bank

9:30 am

Mr. Andrew Blair:

The context of this needs to be seen. The vast majority of those customers had commercial real estate exposure. We all know the value of commercial real estate fell by 65%. Residential real estate values fell by up to 55%, depending on where it was in the country. Buy-to-let property values fell by a similar amount. Therefore, the extent of the downturn in this country was extreme. That is acknowledged. The banks all suffered. The community suffered, businesses suffered and the country suffered economically. This was an extreme downturn. The extent to which people recovered from it when they were over-geared was much lower than one might have expected.