Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

That is the problem. If one has a situation where a mortgage is impaired and if it has also gone into negative equity and the bank is holding the deeds against the full mortgage, any swapping around with equity is the bank subdividing its own collateral. The problem is that a lot of the time there is no equity to play with, but sometimes there is, and what I am saying is that there are a range of possible solutions. Where we think the debt for equity solution fits in is if the initial decision is to do a split mortgage which then raises the question of how to deal with the bit of the mortgage that is warehoused. Rather than accumulating compound interest, as Deputy Durkan said, there may be a solution in having an equity basis for that. I am not rejecting Deputy Tóibín's idea. I am just saying we will explore it and see whether we can work through it.

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