Professor Philip Lane:

I seem to recall having an exchange with Deputy Pearse Doherty on a particular example. My recollection was that in that example there was a gearing rate of about 25%. Therefore it is nowhere near the gearing of a bank. However, I think that is a secondary issue.

When we think about what could happen, we absolutely think about the gearing, the debt, of these funds. We look at the scenario where investment funds lose access to funding and then their conditions change; we do think about that. That is a clear risk factor for the future. The scenarios in which that is going on are scenarios where banks are also facing issues.

On the investment funds, there is an ongoing issue into the future that by and large the restructures they have are partial. They might have interest only or some intermediate case. Over time the issue about how the-----