Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

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

General Banking Matters: Permanent TSB

Mr. Eamonn Crowley:

Regarding the business aspect, I will hand over to Mr. Farrell to comment on our business exposure shortly and to give his thoughts regarding the situation in the wider market. Turning to the utilisation of the €155 million, that provision in itself is for a long-term situation, including the impact of Covid-19. I mentioned in my opening comments that we provided 13,000 payment breaks. Approximately 1,000 customers from that total of 13,000 continue to require forbearance. Our view of, and thought process underpinning, that provisioning was that the numbers could have been higher than the 1,000 customers who have availed of this mechanism. I suggest, therefore, that we are adequately provisioned regarding any potential losses in future. However, such losses may not occur for several years as we continue to work with customers in respect of the resolution of the Covid-19 pandemic. We took a careful and prudent approach concerning our provisioning. Moving on to the business-----