Mr. Ale? Bla?ek:

I thank the Deputy for the question. I agree that the rights of the employees have to be fully protected. Even though I have not been working with colleagues in KBC Ireland for that long, that for me is one of the biggest positives of my work. We have extremely good and dedicated colleagues, who have showed incredible and admirable flexibility. We are focusing on their well-being in many aspects. The Deputy mention the pensions, which is one aspect. As I mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, we have programmes with respect to the well-being of colleagues. We also have training programmes to prepare them well for the future, whatever their career plans may be, in order that they get an appropriate framework in which they can operate. My belief is that our colleagues are extremely well prepared for entering the job market in Ireland. Today, there was an announcement of very low unemployment numbers. Other colleagues have ample opportunity in the job market with their skill sets which they have acquired through KBCI.

We have also put in place quite a good framework on redundancy, which is extremely favourable for other employees. We have respected all groups of employees appropriately in order that no one is left behind and this is the market standard at present in Ireland.

On the issue of representation, we do our best to have a direct engagement model in Ireland with other employees. We have had that engagement model for the past 40 years through employee councils and that model has worked and is working quite well in our case. The employee council properly represents all areas of the bank. All areas of the bank have elected their representatives in the employee council. There is direct engagement with the management, with me and with the employee council and we communicate on a regular and robust basis. Also, the employee council has demonstrated its value in appropriately perfecting employee rights in many aspects of how we progress with the preparation of the transaction and possible wind-down.

I am personally convinced that the model we have had in Ireland for the past 40 years, and which we have now enhanced, works extremely well for employees. It is my personal conviction that we protect the rights of the employees and that we act in accordance with all other undertakings we have taken as KBC or KBCI.