Mr. Shane Kavanagh:

To give an example, at the time we had a protected bond. If people hear the word "protected", they assume their money is protected. It was very well marketed and sold in such a way that it seemed the money was protected and there was nothing to worry about, but the reality is that it was not protected. It was only protected if the customers did not take it out until after a five-year period that they were guaranteed that they would get back their initial investment. In the interim, if they wanted the money and they took it out, there was a chance they were going to lose their money. Therefore, they were not protected, but they were sold a protected bond and customers potentially felt they had got a protected bond.

Another example was a bonus save, whereby if a customer was saving he or she got a bonus. Again, the bonus only applied after a number of years, but before that customers could potentially lose money if they tried to withdraw it before a certain period. It was all trickery in relation to the words that were used.