Mr. Ed Sibley:

In my area, from a prudential supervision perspective, there is engagement with at least one potential new entrant but, as I said earlier, it is a relatively small one. In terms of the mortgage market, competition and the concern about rates in Ireland, if there was a degree of unfairness, overcharging or abnormal profits being made, where are those new entrants? With European Union legislation, there is not a necessity for Central Bank authorisation. A big bank with lower funding costs, without a drag from non-performing loans or from tracker mortgages and in a stronger position underneath the Irish banks could branch in here, under freedom of establishment or freedom of services, and it would not even need to have an operation here. It could lend at much lower rates than the Irish banks, but why does that not happen? One of the reasons is that we still have uncertainty in the Irish market, as shown by the high level of non-performing loans.