Mr. Bernard Sheridan:

The Deputy will be aware of the measures being introduced by the bank from 1 February. We want borrowers to be aware that if their existing lender has a better option within its suite that could benefit them they should be made aware of it. From 1 February lenders will also have to make available to borrowers information on the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission's website, which provides a mortgage tool that allows borrowers to see what is available in the market. We are working to ensure lenders promote the benefits of switching to their borrowers. We are currently undertaking further research in regard to what additional measures we can introduce to help borrowers switch. We are also looking to other countries to see what they have done and while each market is slightly different and so it is difficult to see what measures would work here we are getting some good ideas from the process. To inform our work, we are talking to consumers around their experiences of the switching process and we plan to introduce additional measures in 2017.