Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 April 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Business of Joint Committee
No Consent, No Sale Bill 2019: Discussion

Mr. Ed Sibley:

I touched on the issue of non-performing loans in my opening statement and they have come down a significant amount in the past five or six years. They are in or around 10% of the total loan books, having come down from approximately 31% or 32% at peak. There was a strong push from the Central Bank, before the single supervisory mechanism and as part of it, to continue to drive down non-performing loans in the system in a sustainable way. This European average is a benchmark, not a formal target. Typically there are many banks with low levels of NPLs and a few which have relatively high levels. There are few at the actual average level. There is a strong push to continue to address the NPL problem. We are making sure it is done in a way that respects the consumer and ensures they are protected. There is no hard target to hit European averages by the end of 2019.