Ms Derville Rowland:

I will try to answer the Deputy's questions in turn. I do not have the answer right now on the writedown of asset valuations but we are happy to come back to him in writing. We met with some of the people affected by mica last week.

They raised a number of issues with us, including shortfalls in financing, the rate of financing and the interpretation of contract terms in mortgages for these special and very unique circumstances as well as issues around insurance for their homes because, if you have to move out, that can affect your insurance. We asked them to come back to us with specific requests for the Central Bank because this is a unique situation.

I really welcome the support these homeowners are going to get from the Government redress scheme but it seems that a myriad of issues arise. There is now a need to focus more on a co-ordination mechanism to make the scheme that is in place work for the homeowners across a number of headings and on a consistency of approach between the terms and conditions of each of these elements and the scheme around contracts, because this is not the usual situation. There is a group of people affected by mica whose homes have to be demolished and rebuilt. That affects mortgages, insurance and financing and all of those things have to brought together in a co-ordinated fashion so that a standard set of answers can be applied to the scheme to help people make it work. The issue around the interpretation of the contracts and the demolition and rebuild is unique to the scheme and this needs to work in the context of the scheme. I am not able to answer across each of the headings here but I am very much in sympathy. We can see how, outside of the Central Bank's role in supervising the different entities, co-ordination is needed across all of the elements so that the homeowners can get where they need to get to, that is, get their homes rebuilt and get on with their lives. It is a little bit beyond the financial system.

Of course, I welcome the fact that Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, BPFI, has indicated a willingness to work on this. I believe Insurance Ireland has also indicated such a willingness. However, when you have a redress scheme like this, you have to bring all the issues together in a co-ordinated way so that a uniform set of answers and approaches can be delivered for the people. We are very supportive and very willing to encourage the financial services system to play a sensible role in supporting the working of the scheme but there will be a limit to what we can do in this respect. However, there is a strong place for practical co-ordination so that people do not have to keep going to different places, getting slightly different answers, to help the scheme to work. We are very supportive of that.