Mr. Andrew Blair:

The restructuring group existed long before the financial crisis and it still exists today to look after customers who get into financial difficulties to try to restore them to financial health. That is the primary goal of the organisation. The context is the most extreme downturn in the economic history of the State for the past 70 years. So many customers, who might have been rehabilitated for want of a better word back to financial health in different circumstances just could not be rehabilitated back to financial health. The bank was not in a position where it could transfer loans to NAMA. It was not one of the covered banks, so we did not have that opportunity.

In seeking to restore the financial health of the business for the benefit of our customers and staff and build a business for the future, we needed to deal with the issue of the non-performing loans that we had in the organisation. We did that in full view of the public, the regulator, our shareholder. We did it in a fair and reasonable manner in order to rehabilitate the bank's financial strength and put it in a position where we could support growth in this economy in the future.