Mr. Cormac Butler:

That is correct. Mr. Bush brought this to light in 2010 but it is only now, in 2019, that the accounting profession has admitted that it gave incorrect advice in terms of the delayed recognition process. That is quite a considerable period of time. We have had a few inquiries since, in both the UK and Ireland, but there is no appetite among a certain group of people to bring this to light. It is very important that we do not have another lost decade and that we bring this to light. The committee should be aware that at the moment, banks are claiming that they are making profits when they sell loans to vulture funds but they are not. A bank with a portfolio of loans worth €1 million will claim that when it sells those loans to vulture funds, it will make a profit but that is not the case. The banks are using the same accounting techniques that they used nine years ago. They are writing the loans down to a level the vulture funds are willing to pay and then they sell them to the vulture funds. This matter came to light in an article in the Financial Timeson 4 November 2018. One bank claimed it was making a profit but when one looks through the figures, one sees that a number of losses were being transferred directly against reserves and it was reasonable to conclude that the bank was potentially making a loss on the sale of the loans.