Mr. John Fitzgerald:

As Bank of Ireland's head of agriculture, I will give the committee a brief overview of lending in the agriculture sector so far this year and year on year. I will also provide some commentary regarding our status with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland scheme. As Mr. Cunningham has outlined, Bank of Ireland has consistently provided in excess of 50% of all new lending to the agriculture sector in recent years. New lending to agriculture so far this year is in line with the same period in 2016. In line with the recovery in commodity pricing in certain sectors, we are seeing an increased volume of applications for funding, particularly from dairy farmers. Average farm overdraft utilisation in 2016 was 21%. I believe this is an excellent measure of the financial robustness of the sector as a whole. Allowing for seasonal variation, there has been no material change in agriculture cashflow performance so far this year.

I wish to bring the attention of the committee to the third slide in the bank's presentation, which provides up-to-date information. As of close of business on Friday, 5 May, Bank of Ireland had agreed to provide €65 million under the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland agriculture cashflow support loan scheme. Demand for loans has exceeded all of our expectations. Within four weeks of the start of the scheme, the bank had received 1,900 applications for inclusion in it. To date, the bank has issued loans worth €39.1 million, which represents 60% of our total commitment to the scheme. We are committed to having €65 million fully drawn as quickly as possible. We expect that the vast majority of the funds will be drawn by the end of June. As members of the committee can see in our documentation, the beef and dairy sectors account for 85% of all funds drawn to date and 87% of all applications drawn to date. We had expected to see a greater appetite for funding from the tillage and pig sectors, but this has not transpired.

Bank of Ireland's average loan size under this scheme is €29,000 and its average loan term is 31 months. Approximately 38% of all funding drawn to date is for a loan tenure of four or more years. Beef farmers, who typically require funding to purchase stock, have received 57% of all Bank of Ireland funding drawn to date. This funding is normally loaned over a term of up to 24 months. Some 24% of funding has been provided for terms of between two and three years and 38% of funding has been provided over a 12-month term. Loans worth €12.7 million have been approved but have not yet been drawn. A further €13.2 million is to be processed to approval stage in fulfilment of Bank of Ireland's commitment under the scheme. As a result of the receipt of such a volume of applications within such a short period of time, there have been delays in processing those applications. We expect to have all applications processed within the next two weeks. Bank of Ireland's priority is to get the loans drawn as soon as possible. We estimate that more than 2,100 loans will be drawn by our customers under the scheme. I thank the members of the committee for their time.