Large items. Please note there are three exits from the room. The door at the back which you entered from, this door to the right, and the door at the back of the room over here to the right. If you wish to use the restrooms at any stage, please approach a member of the security team located at each door, and they'll direct you. There are no fire drills planned for today. If the alarm sounds, please make your way to the nearest fire exit in a calm manner. Upon exiting, please follow the instructions of the security staff and make your way to the evacuation point indicated. I'd ask you just please to take note of the exit nearest to you. Finally, if I could just ask you to check now that your mobile phone is switched off for the duration of the meeting. Thank you very much. I'll hand over now to our Chairman, Jim Pettigrew. Thank you very much, Conor, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Can I extend a very, very warm welcome to you to the AIB 2022 Annual General Meeting. Welcome to everyone here in Molesworth Street, and of course, welcome to everybody who is listening in via the conference line medium as well. Everyone is welcome. My name is Jim Pettigrew, and I have the honor of being appointed the chair of AIB in October last year. The 28th of October last year. This is my first annual general meeting of AIB Group plc, and it's really good, isn't it, that we're all able to come back physically for the first time since 2019. I hope you feel safe and comfortable in the environment this morning. Now, we start to move to formalities. I can confirm that we are quorate, and so I can now, ladies and gentlemen, formally open the meeting. Now, the notice of meeting, together with the 2001 annual report, were posted to shareholders on the first of April of this year. Of course, are available on our website. Now, on the podium today with me, I have beside me our, indeed your, Chief Executive, Colin Hunt. Next to Colin, we've got the Chief Financial Officer, Donal Galvin. On my extreme left here, we've got Helen Dooley, the General Counsel. Of course, you've just heard from Conor Gouldson, the Company Secretary. All other directors, other than Anik Chaumartin, who is actually joining us by phone, are indeed present and actually sitting on the front row. I thought today, given that we haven't had a physical meeting for two years, there's a number of new non-exec directors here as well. Just thought it would be good if I quickly introduced them to you. Starting first of all with Basil Geoghegan. You just let you know. There's Basil. Tanya Horgan. And Sandy here, Sandy Kinney Pritchard. Sandy is Chair of the Audit Committee. Carolan Lennon here. She is, of course, our SID. Elaine MacLean, Chair of Remuneration Nominations Committee. And indeed, the Designated NED for Employee Relations as well. Andy Maguire is with us here as well. Here's Andy. And of course, you'll be familiar with Brendan McDonagh, who is of course Deputy Chair and Chair of the Risk Committee as well. Helen Normoyle is at the end here. Helen actually chairs the Sustainability Committee of the corporation. Fergal O'Dwyer is sitting here. Jan Sijbrand here. Anne plays a very important part, I should mention as well, of course, as Chair of the Technology Committee. Ann O'Brien there as well. Finally, we've got Raj Singh here as. There you are. Hopefully, you've got a chance to chat to the directors before the meeting, but of course, there'll be an opportunity afterwards. After the formalities, perhaps we can catch up with you then. I will now invite, in a minute or two, I'm gonna be inviting Colin to give us an overview and indeed an update of performance in 2021. He'll also address the quarter one trading update, which was just released today. You've got that to look forward to in a couple of minutes. We also have colleagues you've probably seen just as you come in from our customer care team. Mr. Connor Maguire and Sita Ramaswamy. Please, if you want any points you wanna raise on relevant matters with them, please go and find them. They're here and available after the meeting. Now, in the statement, in my statement indeed, of the 2021 annual report, I recorded my thanks to Brendan, the Deputy Chair. You'll recall he has fulfilled the role of Acting Chairman of your company at the group's request until my appointment. I would just like to repeat a big thank you to Brendan with genuine sincerity from myself and from everybody at AIB. A big thank you, Brendan. Now, one of the most visible measures of a company's success, of course, is an outlook really for the future, is its ability to reward its shareholders through dividends. It's very pleasing to be able to announce that the board is recommending EUR 0.045 for the financial year of 2021. That is going to be a proposal in this meeting for your approval today. This is the first dividend resolution to be put to shareholders since 2019. At the time of our 2021 results announcement, we also announced a share buyback amounting to EUR 91 million, which is subject to a further update, which Colin will be updating you on in a minute. This will represent dividend distributions in total of EUR 213 million, representing a 40% payout of our 2021 earnings. Now, in my early months just of being chairman of AIB, a few things are very clear to me. The central role that sustainability is playing in informing the group's strategy and the decision-making by the board and indeed the executive committee. Now, if you haven't already, I do encourage you all to go onto the website and look at the sustainability report. It's an excellent report, and also very grateful for shareholders who voted to receive the annual report right through you know through technology and digital rather, and access through the website, helpful from the sustainability. In fact, we've reduced sending out actually from 8,000-9,000 annual reports down to 2,000. Really not only just saying things in sustainability, actually doing things. Now, Brendan informed you at the meeting last year that a number of additional appointments to the board were in train. In May, we announced the appointment of the Group CFO, Donal, as Executive Director, and the board also made a number of non-exec appointments as well. Anik Chaumartin, former partner with PwC, joined with effect from the first of July. Tanya Horgan, former Chief Risk Officer with Flutter Entertainment PLC, with effect from the 14th of September. Jan Sijbrand, former executive at ABN AMRO and Chairman for Supervision at the Central Bank of the Netherlands, also joined with effect from the 14th of September. Congratulations to all these individuals. As I mentioned earlier, I joined the board on the 28th of October. I'm now ready to hand over to Colin for an address to the shareholders present here at the venue and everybody listening obviously from the conference line. I'm very pleased to say, you know, it's all about implementing at pace, I think, Colin, our strategy inorganically, organically. Real momentum, I think you're going to talk about. Indeed, of course, an update on a very strong Q1 update we've just released this morning. Colin, without any further ado, over to Colin, our Chief Executive Officer. Thank you very much indeed, Chairman. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. It's great to welcome back those of you in person here today for the first time since the pre-pandemic days of 2019 to update you on the group's performance for 2021 and for the Q1 of this year. You may have seen that we released a trading statement to the markets at 7:00 AM this morning. Notwithstanding heightened geopolitical risk and uncertainty internationally, the domestic economy here in Ireland remains strong. We are, however, very cognizant that higher prices are affecting our personal business and corporate customers this year as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has further contributed to inflation, higher energy costs, and supply chain issues. We aim to continue supporting our customers and the wider economy through the challenges ahead, just as we did during the pandemic. Last year was a year of very significant progress across the group, despite the uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The domestic economy here in Ireland performed much better than expected due to the successful vaccine rollout, sustained government supports for individuals and businesses, and society's willingness to adapt to restrictions. Against this backdrop, we reported a strong set of results with a pre-exceptional profit before tax of EUR 947 million, a robust CET1 capital position, and solid growth in new lending. Clear evidence of our ability to play a key central role in this country's economic recovery. On foot of the profits generated and in line with our dividend policy, we proposed a distribution to our shareholders of EUR 213 million, including EUR 122 million in cash form and EUR 91 million through a share buyback program. I'm pleased to announce the commencement of that share buyback program today. I'm also pleased to report that the group recorded a strong financial performance in the Q1 of this year, and we are confident of achieving our full-year guidance for 2022. Total income increased by 4% compared to the same period last year, enhanced through our diversified income streams, while other income increased by 14%. We have maintained our continued focus on cost discipline with operating expenses broadly similar to the Q1 of 2021. Our EUR 230 million cost savings program is on track with the number of full-time employees unchanged since December 2021, remaining at 8,916. In the Q1 of this year, total new lending was EUR 2.8 billion, which is up 18% compared with the same period in 2021, with very positive trends evident across retail and capital markets. The Irish mortgage market continues to perform strongly in the Q1 of this year, with total drawdowns for the market as a whole up 17% on the Q1 of 2021. Our new mortgage lending at AIB Group was EUR 800 million in the quarter, which was up 58% on the same quarter in 2021, which was our highest Q1 new mortgage lending in three years. As of the end of March, AIB's mortgage market share stood at 32.2% year-to-date, and momentum is strong going into the remainder of the year. The reopening of the Irish economy drove an improvement in consumer and business sentiment and led to a 24% increase in new personal lending, while new lending to SMEs in Ireland was up to 3% in the Q1. With continuing momentum from the second half of last year, capital markets had a strong Q1, particularly in corporate banking and real estate finance. We continue to support our customers on the transition to a lower carbon economy, and green lending accounted for 22% of total new lending, while our green mortgage product represented 23% of new Republic of Ireland mortgage lending. Our non-performing exposures, a key area of focus for the group in the past decade, decreased to EUR 3 billion or 5.1% of gross loans, the lowest level since the onset of the global financial crisis and down from 5.4% at the end of December last year, and we remain well on track to achieve our 3% target by the end of 2023. Our fully loaded CET1 at the end of the Q1 was 16.6% and reflects the impact of the proposed 91 million share buyback. In Q2, we expect the acquisition of the Ulster Bank corporate and commercial loans to reduce our CET1 by some 130 basis points. Our strong capital position, which is well ahead of our medium-term target of greater than 13.5%, enables us to invest in our business, pursue return accretive inorganic opportunities, and make distributions to our shareholders. 2021 was a year of very significant progress on previously announced inorganic initiatives. Goodbody rejoined the group on the 31st of August 2021 and now significantly enhances our wealth and capital markets offering. We are very pleased both with the acquisition and the pace of its integration into the group. We received Competition and Consumer Protection Commission clearance for the acquisition of some EUR 3.7 billion Ulster Bank corporate and commercial loans, which will result in the transfer of 5,000 customers and approximately 280 Ulster Bank employees to AIB Group over the coming months. As intended, we will commence the migration of loans on a phased basis over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition for both customers and employees. We've also entered into exclusive discussions with NatWest Group for the acquisition of some EUR 6 billion of Ulster Bank performing tracker and linked mortgages. However, any potential transaction remains subject to final negotiations and agreement. On our joint venture that we propose with Great-West Lifeco, we're making good progress with Competition and Consumer Protection Commission clearance already received, and the Central Bank of Ireland licensing process is now underway. This initiative will significantly enhance our retail wealth proposition across savings, life, pensions, and investments, with clear benefits for our customers and revenue diversification. We also acquired a 50% stake in Autolease Fleet Management, trading as Nifti, making an initial investment of EUR 6 million to help provide more sustainable car leasing options to business and personal customers. We will provide further funding to support the expansion of this business as it works with customers switching to electric and hybrid vehicles. As the chairman has said, sustainable communities is a key strategic pillar for our group. The environmental, social, and governance agenda is being embedded as part of the very fabric of this organization and how we conduct our activities day in, day out. Last year, we doubled our climate action fund to EUR 10 billion, and we continued to expand our green lending, which accounted for 19% of all new lending in 2021 as the fastest-growing part of our loan book. We, as a business, reduced our own scope one and two emissions by 19% in 2021, down 71% off a 2009 baseline, and we've set ourselves the target of being net zero in our own operations by 2030, and we are well on track to achieve that very, very important objective. We gave further practical effect to our commitment to social progress, particularly in relation to the greatest issue facing our society today, the housing deficit. We announced a new EUR 500 million social housing fund to provide 3,000 social housing units in Ireland in the coming three years. We published our social bond framework in 2021, and in March of this year, we issued Ireland's first social bond, raising EUR 1 billion for investment into projects with clear social benefits. We also became the title sponsor of the GOAL Mile, and we donated an initial quarter of a million EUR to support GOAL's Ukraine emergency appeal as part of an overall half a million EUR commitment to support those in need. In addition, we are matching all staff donations. Our purpose, our values, and our people are the cornerstones upon which our culture is built. Empowering our leaders and encourage them to live our organization's values and associated behaviors is key to evolving our culture. We are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive organization that delivers for all our customers and creates an environment in which our employees also develop and thrive. In 2021, we were the first Irish bank to be awarded a silver accreditation by the Irish Centre for Diversity, Ireland's only equality, diversity, and inclusion performance mark. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, our customer-facing colleagues continued to work tirelessly, supporting our customers, while the majority of our colleagues continued to work remotely. Progress was also made on our future work plans, and in December of last year, we defined our future hybrid working model. Following our return to profitability in 2021 and a strong Q1, 2022 will be a pivotal year for the group as we close out legacy items, integrate inorganic initiatives, and work towards achieving our strategic goals. While the domestic macro environment is supportive of Irish economic growth forecast at some 5%, we remain alert to the increased geopolitical risk and uncertainty in the global economy. With a resilient balance sheet and strong business pipeline, we are confident in our outlook as we focus on implementing our strategy at pace and supporting our customers. We've set out clearly our strategic priorities, and we are relentless in implementing our plans as we build an ever stronger and more resilient AIB Group in the interests of all our stakeholders. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Colin, for that very comprehensive roundup really and on progress and an update on the activities of the bank. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to the formal part of the meeting where we consider and indeed vote upon resolutions. There are actually 28 resolutions today before us. Now, that seems rather a lot, but we have to vote individually for all, for the directors as well. We'll move through this in as efficient manner as is appropriate. Now, as usual, you will have opportunities to ask questions in a few moments. Of course, if you prefer just in private to, you know, ask these questions in private, then please contact the company secretary afterwards. I'll be around as well afterwards, and we can try and address these questions then. Yeah. Indeed, you can email them as well, can't you, Conor? The email address is in the notice of the meeting. Now, between myself and the senior executives present, we will do our very best to answer your questions. But where more information is required, we may say, "Look, we will get back to you and provide you details at the end of the, after the meeting." Also, can I just one respectful plea, let's keep the questions focused obviously on the agenda of the meeting. That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. As a matter of procedure, as I said earlier, we will be proposing 28 resolutions in one section, then taking questions in relation to all 28. We'll do that once we're through the resolutions. Yeah. You're entitled to ask any question on any resolution in that question and answer session, and I hope this makes it easier really for you. I seek your patience as the question time will come later once we get through these resolutions. Thank you. The board really believes it is important that the intentions of all shareholders who register a vote are taken into account. Therefore, I am now calling a poll on each of the resolutions to be proposed. We'll be voting by poll on each of them separately at the end of the meeting, and that way all the proxies received prior to the meeting will be taken into account. The full text of each resolution is contained in the notice of the meeting, which hopefully you've all received. It's on pages 10 to 14. We'll come to questions after I've proposed all the resolutions. Let's start with the first resolution, ladies and gentlemen, and that is on the agenda relates to the 2021 annual financial report, which I will propose shortly as an ordinary resolution. Before I do that, I do need to turn to the independent auditor's report. This is very detailed, and it's set out in pages 217 to 228 inclusive in the annual report. It's obviously been published on our website. Now, John McCarroll from our auditors, where is John? There's John there. Deloitte is present here in Molesworth Street and is most welcome, John. You're very welcome. However, I propose that with the consent of members present here today, we take the audit report as read. Is everybody comfortable with that? Yes. Thank you. I see nodding heads. Can I just thank all of you for that. I would therefore propose the following resolution, that following a review of the company's affairs and financial statements for the year ended 31st December 2021, together with the reports of the directors and the auditors thereon, be received and considered. That's the first resolution, ladies and gentlemen. We move on to resolution number two, and this relates to the declaration of a final dividend. I'm pleased, as I mentioned earlier and Colin touched on, I'm pleased to report and indeed propose an ordinary resolution that a final dividend of EUR 0.045 per ordinary share be declared for the year ended 31st December 2021. Resolution three deals with auditors' remuneration. The work of the auditor and the level of audit fees are reviewed on behalf of the board by the audit committee. The committee is satisfied that the effectiveness of the auditor and the fees are indeed appropriate. I'm pleased therefore to propose as an ordinary resolution to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditor. We can now move on to resolution four, and this relates to the continuation in office of Deloitte as an auditor. Under Irish company law, the statutory auditor is automatically reappointed except in very specific and limited circumstances which do not, may I stress, pertain here. Accordingly, this vote is an advisory vote only. I'm proposing the following ordinary resolution as an advisory resolution, that the continuation in office of Deloitte as auditor of the company until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting of the company be approved. We now move on, ladies and gentlemen, to resolution number five. This deals with the election and re-election of the directors. Now, as advised in my letter accompanying the notice of the meeting, AIB Group plc is required to comply with the provisions of the Irish listing rules and of course the U.K. listing rules relating to controlling shareholders and the election or re-election of independent non-executive directors. Now, as the Minister for Finance in Ireland is a controlling shareholder, for the purposes of the listing rules, that is, the Minister exercises that control, controls more than 30% of the voting rights of the company. Certain resolutions VA, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, N, O and P must be approved by a majority of both the shareholders of the company and the independent shareholders of the company. That is, shareholders of the company who are not controlling shareholders of the company. The board is confident, may I say, that all directors are experienced and knowledgeable and that they each bring valuable skills to the board. An objective perspective in all business matters that come before the board. The board considers the contribution of each of the individual directors and the board as a totality, as a whole, and this continues to be important in the long-term sustainability success of the company. Now, biographical details on the bios of all directors that are standing for re-election or election here set out in pages 36 and 39 of the annual report. It's there for you to inspect and review. I now come to actually the formalities of actually the proposal here. A separate ordinary resolutions are each of Anit Chaumartin, Donal Galvin, Basil Geoghegan, Tanya Horgan, Colin Hunt, Sandy Kinney Pritchard, Carolan Lennon, Elaine MacLean, Andy Maguire, Brendan McDonagh, Helen Normoyle, and of course, Ann O'Brien, Fergal O'Dwyer. I'm leaving me blank at the moment because I can't propose myself. I'm going to ask Colin to do that in a second. Jan Sijbrand, and of course, Raj Singh. These be elected or re-elected as director. I will now just stand aside and ask Colin to propose myself. I propose that Jim Pettigrew be elected as a director. Thank you, Colin. Right with that. Can I second that? Yeah. Yes. Yes, you can indeed. Thank you very much for that. Moving on to resolution number six, ladies and gentlemen. This is another advisory resolution which deals with the remuneration of the company's directors. Again, of course, this is fully disclosed in the annual financial report. I propose the following ordinary resolution as an advisory resolution that the directors' remuneration report, as set out on pages 205-207 in the annual report, be considered. Resolution seven is an advisory resolution, ladies and gentlemen, as well. This again is in relation to remuneration policy. I propose as an ordinary resolution that the remuneration policy set out on pages 201-202 in the annual financial report be considered. Right. We're just about halfway through, so we will move on to resolutions eight. These 8 through to 12 are fairly technical in nature, ladies and gentlemen. Quite long-winded, unfortunately. But they're set out in detail in the notice of the meeting and explained in the accompanying letter. I do hope that helps shareholders. They're considered, may I stress, to be absolutely in line with market practice, take account of relevant guidelines and principles. With the consent of the members present here at the meeting, I propose that we take the full text of these resolutions as read, and I will instead describe briefly the purpose of each of these resolutions for you now. Resolution eight is an ordinary resolution which I propose to authorize the directors to allot and issue new shares should that, of course, need arise. Nine. I propose resolution 9A, which is a special resolution, which if passed, would allow for the limited disapplication of pre-emption rights while empowering the directors to allot equity securities for cash otherwise than in accordance with statutory pre-emption rights. This limited disapplication is restricted, ladies and gentlemen, just to 5% of the current issued share capital. Resolution 9B, this is another special resolution which, if passed, would allow for limited disapplication of pre-emption rights again. Proposed to empower the directors to allot equity securities for cash to fund an acquisition or what the directors would determine to be a specific capital investment. This, again, limited disapplication is also capped at 5% of the current issued share capital. Tabling these two resolutions is the way that is recommended by the Pre-Emption Group, which monitors the protection of shareholders' rights in the U.K. and Ireland. Resolution 10 is proposed by me as a special resolution to authorize the market purchase by the company of its own shares. Again, limited up to, this time, 10% of the company's issued shares as of today's date. Resolution 11 is a special resolution to authorize the company to reissue shares purchased by it, and not cancel those treasury shares. If granted, the minimum and maximum prices at which treasury shares may be reissued shall be determined in accordance with this resolution, and of course, the company's articles of association. I now propose Resolution 11 to the meeting. Resolution 12, an ordinary one, is also proposed by me as a special resolution to authorize directors to call a general meeting other than, may I say, an annual general meeting such as this or a meeting for the passing of a special resolution or the appointment of a director on not less than 14 clear days' notice. I wish to assure you all that the convening of an extraordinary general meeting at short notice would only ever be done in exceptional circumstances. We move, ladies and gentlemen, on to the final resolution on today's agenda, which is resolution number thirteen. This, again, is a special resolution, and this resolution, if passed, will renew the authority of the company, and this was granted by you for the first time at the 2021 AGM. This is to make off-market purchases of ordinary shares from the Minister for Finance or indeed his nominee, pursuant to the directed buyback contract entered into the company and the minister on the third of June two thousand and twenty-one. I wish to assure you that the exercise of this authority now or indeed in the future, will only be contemplated by your board and undertaken if it considers that such a transaction will be in the best interests of shareholders as a whole and relevant regulatory approvals are, of course, in place. Ladies and gentlemen, that completes. Thank you for your perseverance with that. There are a number of resolutions I needed before, so thank you for listening. That is important, these formalities are completed appropriately. Thank you for that. We now turn, as I promised, to questions. We'll be opening up for questions. What I'd like to do first with all everything, I'll take the questions. There have been some that have already been submitted to us in advance of the meeting, and I will ask our company secretary, Conor, here just to read these out on behalf of these shareholders. Conor, over to you. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much. We received questions in advance from two shareholders, a total of four questions. I have them here and have our responses also. The first is from a shareholder, Hugh Maguire, and he says, "I wish to bring up the following issue at the AGM. The call waiting time to speak to a representative is totally unacceptable. On 21 April, I contacted AIB on a telephone number given and waited 39 minutes to speak to an AIB member of staff. However, when the member of staff answered, she apparently could not hear me, and she hung up. I redialed the number again, and after 37 minutes got through to a person who told me that AIB's internet systems was down and that was the reason I had an issue. There was no information on the AIB website stating that there was an issue with internet and phone banking. AIB wasted at least 90+ minutes of my time, my time trying to resolve the issue and then my time on the phone with AIB. This is not the first time I've contacted AIB and had similar waiting times to speak to an AIB member of staff. Every time I contact AIB, I get the following message, "We are experiencing a higher than normal volume of customer queries. We apologize for the delay, and thank you for your patience. A member of staff will be with you shortly." There's also no phone service provided after 5:00 PM until 9:00 AM the following day. Banking issues are not confined to these hours. The COVID restrictions have been lifted, yet AIB restrictions have not been lifted. The level of service to customers must be improved, and AIB must give assurance at the AGM that all customer phone calls will be answered by a member of staff within 5-10 minutes of the phone call by the customer. Can you please confirm that the above will be read aloud and answered at the meeting? Our answer to Mr. Maguire is, we are very sorry that is your experience, Mr. Maguire, or the experience of any of our customers. The board is acutely aware of the impact of call waiting times on customers and earlier this year specifically requested that relevant data be included in its core information package so this can be monitored. We are determined to get this right. On the day in question, we did have slow performance on our internet banking, which did drive a higher than normal volume of calls to our phone lines. In the first three months of this year, our team in phone banking handled over 760,000 calls from customers. A number of factors are influencing these volumes and the time necessary for each call, and these include increased security measures driven by regulatory changes and the technical support required by customers for these are driving higher volumes. These are also relatively complex calls and have taken longer to resolve for customers. Also ongoing fraud-related calls driven by various scams, which we all read about daily. I want to assure you the call center is a priority for us to deliver good customer service. We are currently deploying between 500 and 1,000 staff who will be trained up during April and May as part of our overall response to the transformation of the Irish banking landscape. We will continue to focus on this area until we get service levels back to the correct level. Another shareholder, Chairman, sent in three questions. Shareholder is Gerard Coughlan. The first question is, how many Ulster Bank tracker mortgages is AIB hoping to acquire as part of the Ulster Bank departure plan? Will the latest plan to acquire the Ulster Bank tracker loans also require approval and be subject to final agreement with Ulster Bank parent company, NatWest, and regulatory approval by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission? Our answer is, while we were very pleased to announce last week that we are in exclusive negotiations with NatWest Group plc to acquire the Ulster Bank tracker mortgages, we are unable to comment further on this today. Any transaction remains subject to negotiations and agreement, and we will make a further announcement with more details if and when this is acquired. The second question is, as Ulster Bank and KBC need to find new current account providers, has AIB made any preparations or hired new staff to make way for the unprecedented demand for new accounts? And this relates in some way actually to Mr. Maguire's question earlier and the response given. As advised in response to Mr. Maguire, we are currently deploying between 500 and 1,000 staff who will be trained up during April and May as part of our overall response to what is a transformation of the Irish banking landscape. This will include the hiring of temporary staff as required, the redeployment of 300 existing staff, setting up a dedicated account opening center, the deployment of additional staff in our call centers, and continuing to invest in enhancing our digital products and services. The final question is, regarding the proposed distribution of EUR 213 million, or EUR 0.078 per share, which represents a 40% payout, when is AIB likely to start returning excess capital to the legal shareholders? Distributing surplus capital should be a key milestone for the bank. Will the excess capital be returned post-execution of the Ulster Bank portfolio acquisition? Our response is the board's dividend policy is for a payout of between 40%-60% of after-tax earnings. Any consideration by the board of a distribution of any nature to shareholders is made annually, having regard to the group's performance and the capital requirements of the group. They're all the questions, Chairman, and I hope I've given as full answers as we can. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Colin. Very important to get the questions in. Very important we answer them. Thank you for that. Ladies and gentlemen, now we're ready, I think, to take any questions from shareholders who are present here. Just some housekeeping things. If you've got a question, I already see hands going up, please raise your pink attendance card. A member of the team will give you a microphone. Please state your name before asking a question. If you're a proxy, you know, or you're a corporate representative, please make sure you say both your name and that of the shareholder you represent. Remember, as I was saying before, we very respectfully ask you to keep the questions related to the business of the meeting. Yes, I see you, Mr. Coughlan. Yes. Thank you, Chairman. My name is Brendan Burgess. Good morning, Mr. Burgess. I have been coming to these AGMs for some years, and I've been trying to make one point which has been completely lost, so I'm hoping with a new chairman, you know, we might make a bit of progress. Treating customers fairly is not incompatible with making profits. This is something really, really important that I wish you'd convey. I wish you'd understand, first of all, and you'd convey it to the rest of your board. Slogans like, "We pledge to do more," "At the heart of customers' lives," and, "Backing our customers," these are hollow and offensive to the 12,000 customers that your bank tried to cheat out of their trackers. This is not a legacy issue, particularly because, and I'll come back to it later, your proposed acquisition of the Ulster Bank mortgages. Let me just, as you're new to this position, let me just explain a little bit of what happened. There were 6,000 customers who had a fixed rate mortgage contract, which said, "At the end of the contract, you will have a choice of a fixed rate, a variable rate, or another, or a tracker rate." What AIB did was they said, "We no longer offer tracker mortgages, so we're not offering you a tracker mortgage." They had been drawn up for new customers. When this case was argued, they said, "Well, just because your contract says you have a choice of these doesn't mean we have to offer it." You came up with the brilliant idea. Well, after the central bank told you to pay each of these people EUR 1,500 or EUR 1,600, you came up with the brilliant idea, this was not a breach of contract. This was a service failure. best of all, best of all was you said, "Well, even if we did break the contract, even if we should have offered them the tracker, they didn't lose out, because although we were charging standard variable rate customers the highest mortgage rates in the Eurozone, 4%, well, the tracker rate would have been 12%. So if we'd given them trackers. So they're lucky they didn't get trackers." This was the arguments put forward by your bank. what I can't understand, and I haven't been given an explanation for this, you know, the board approved all of those arguments. I can imagine at a brainstorming session, some clever lawyers coming up with these stupid arguments. I can't understand how a board, and you've set out the qualities of this board, I can't understand how they didn't stand up and say, "Hang on a moment. If the contract says you will have a choice, then surely we have to offer them that." How come they didn't say, "Well, the fact that you've stopped offering trackers to new customers has no effect on people who already have a contract, which gives them a requirement or an option of getting a tracker." I mean, how did people. These people are still on the board. I mean, this is not a legacy issue because these people, Brendan, as far as I can work out, Brendan, Helen, Ann, Sandy, Carolan and Elaine, they were all on the board that didn't ask these questions. They didn't say, "Why on earth are we saying in public that you'd have been charged 12% when we were already charging the highest rate of 4%?" This makes no sense to me. Back a few years ago, when Francesca McDonagh was appointed Chief Executive, Bank of Ireland, she came in, and she looked at the tracker issues. She exercised independence of mind. She exercised personal authority and personal confidence and competence, and she said, "You are to resolve those issues." She resolved a whole raft of them, and the bank moved on. There are still some issues, but she went and resolved most of them. I had great hopes for you, Colin. You came in, your hands were not dirty. You had not been involved in this issue. You had nothing to defend. I was hoping that you would do a Francesca McDonagh. I was hoping that you'd aspire. You would exercise your personal intelligence, which I believe yous have, that you'd exercise your integrity and your competence, and that you would see these arguments for the nonsense that they are, but you didn't. You just stood over all of these arguments, and you forced these customers to go to the ombudsman, and that is deeply disappointing. I have to say that. It is deeply disappointing. What sort of puzzles me is how you thought you were going to get away with it. I really just don't understand that. You know, I'm trying to point out that when you have a problem, Mr. Pettigrew, I hope when you know, get stuck into this or if you're not already stuck into it, that you point out to these people that when you have a problem, putting your hands up and identifying that problem and accepting that you've made a mistake, that is the cheapest and best way to deal with it. There are 12,000 tracker customers whose lives have been damaged very badly by this. A lot of them have been put into arrears. Some of them have lost their homes. I'm hoping, and I'm trusting now that you will make sure that the 40,000 Ulster Bank tracker customers, which hopefully will be coming on board with AIB, that you're not gonna try any of your tracker trickery with those, that they will keep their trackers, and that you will not make any efforts to get them off them. I'm assuming that the competition authority will make sure of that as well. Again, it's an important point. When you're trying to do business and acquire something, your reputation is important, and treating customers fairly is very, very important. I've one last point to make, and it comes back to the question already asked. Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB are out there actively looking for Ulster Bank and KBC customers, yet at the same time, AIB is putting up barriers. We heard about the guy on the phone, although he wasn't moving. Anybody trying to open an AIB account is finding it extremely difficult. Many are told for some reason that they must come in and make an appointment. When is the next appointment? One month's time, two months' time, or three months' time. Like, what sort of an institution? I mean, you know, you're thinking short term. You don't need customers. You don't need deposits now. Hopefully, Jim, you'll be the chairman for the next few years, and we'd be in a situation where normal banking will have been restored, and you will be looking for customers. You should not be putting up barriers to customers. You should be looking to take them on. The main thing I want you to do is to change the culture among the board and get them to realize that treating customers fairly should be at the core of what you do, and it's not an empty slogan. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Let me just start by responding to some of your points. First of all, thank you for your various points. First of all, look, I can't comment on the past, I'm afraid, you know. I mean, I can tell you one thing. You raise a point about is customer care at the heart of this organization, and really what you're saying is it more than just words. All I can tell you, since I've been here since the twenty-eighth of October, I can look you in the eye and tell you it absolutely is. My mission, and indeed all the board's mission here, is absolutely that. I can tell you categorically, at the very spot, it is absolutely the pinnacle of what we're. That is what we're doing. Yeah? I cannot promise to you that there won't be, for instance, we had this instance with this telephone call, where somebody might phone on a bad day and something like. I'm afraid that will happen in life. Your central point, your first point, an important point you're making is the customer at the center of everything this corporation is doing now and in the future. All I can tell you is I will not spend a minute short of all time to try and make sure that that actually is the case. I believe from my interactions with the board over the last six months, that that is the same view of everybody on the board. I'm sorry, I can't. I know it sounds like a sort of easy answer. I cannot comment, and I'm not gonna comment on the past. Your point about making sure the customer is at the center of things is a fair point, and I'm saying and responding to you that it most definitely is. My mission as the new chairman of this organization is for that to be the case. I have to say that my sense from working closely with Colin and his executive team, that is absolutely at the heart of Colin's DNA and his leadership team DNA and culture. You're right, culture is always important in all organizations and is front of line. That'd be my first point. On trackers, it may be, Colin, you want to come in and perhaps Helen may, but just a couple of observations from me would be on trackers. You know, we are absolutely determined to get this finally behind us, you know. As these historic legacy must be put behind us, and we are very confident it will be put. That's first point. Second point, and it comes back to what I was saying earlier, everything we're doing around this is through the customer lens. My final point, really as a general point, is we're now I think at 99.5%, sort of the matters have been resolved. So I really do think we're going to be able to get this behind us this year. I think picking up, you know, other point, Mr. Burgess, on inbound, you know, given the changing landscape that we've got within the retail banking industry here in Ireland. I mean, the first point I'm sure Colin will reinforce is, I mean, we want to bring on customers. We want to you know. We of course want to do that, and we want to do that absolutely appropriately and well for the customers. So, there's no intention of blockages. Picking up actually really on Conor's point from responding to the first question, we will be 500 to 1,000 people of additional resource. Some will be internal sort of switches, temporary resources, to make sure this happens in a sensible timeframe, so that we can, you know, so we can onboard these customers. There's no intention at all of blocking. In fact, we want to have an enhanced customer experience for all of these people. Colin, I mean, you may wish to respond to Mr. Burgess's points. Yeah. Obviously, this is something that we as a cycle business. Yeah. Something that we've discussed at the AGM, I think in 2020 and 2021. In relation to the tracker issue, once the FSPO decision arrived in relation to one customer, we moved expeditiously to apply that decision to the letter and in its spirit to the entirety of that customer group. We are committed to resolving the tracker issue for once and for all, and we are committed to resolving it to the satisfaction of the Central Bank and to concluding on this matter, hopefully during this calendar year. In relation to new customers, this is I've described it as a once-in-a-lifetime change in the banking landscape in this country. I can assure you, Mr. Burgess, and everybody else here, that we will do everything to ensure that customers of Ulster Bank or KBC who choose to come to AIB have as friction-free, and seamless experience as is possible. We are investing very, very heavily in people and systems at this moment in time to ensure that that happens. We regard this as a short-term challenge, but a very, very significant medium and long-term opportunity for the group, and we want to welcome as many of those customers who choose to come to AIB. Okay, thanks. If you have a follow-up, then I'll move on to somebody else. Yeah. This is not a legacy issue. You are not trying to resolve it. There's one very small point, Jim, that you might look into. The ombudsman's wording in this case was peculiar, and AIB interpreted this as it is okay to pay a refund to calculate the interest on a simple interest basis. Jim, are you a chartered accountant? Certainly am. Have you worked in banking? Yes. Have you ever heard of a bank making a refund and calculating the interest on a simple interest basis? It just doesn't happen. AIB is the only bank to do it, and they say, "We followed the letter of the law," and they went back to the ombudsman. Now every ombudsman's case is separate, and I'm making sure that the ombudsman will rule again on this issue. This is. You know, you said the letter and the spirit. You've stuck to the letter, Colin. You did not look at the spirit. The spirit would be that when a bank overcharges, you refund on a compound interest basis. By the way, it's small money. You know, the average per person refund that people got was about EUR 40,000. This would be about another EUR 2,000 each. It's just extremely annoying that the bank won't put this to bed and actually go and do the right thing and stick to the spirit, not the letter. I've nothing else to say. Helen, do you want to come in? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. As you know, we've engaged with you on this, we've engaged with the Ombudsman, and we believe we have interpreted the Ombudsman's decision appropriately and- Not the spirit. The spirit of the ombudsman's decision, and we moved at pace, as Colin said, to apply a decision with regard to one customer to approximately 6,000 customers. Thanks. Yes, sir. Myself, that is. Yeah, I'm just giving the microphone to you. Peter Gallagher is my name, and I have my hands in all tills, all things. Two things I will say to you briefly. Thanks for the umbrella, by the way, and all the extras and the service today. It's lovely. That when I was a young fit man, I've had many checks of various banks bounced, and I will speak frankly, you can't afford to bounce any more checks. You can't afford not to have a war chest. You've got to be very much on the ball this year, 'cause NatWest are building a huge network of cash, and they are making acquisitions. They have their hands in all your colleagues, all the various banks, Permanent, Irish Permanent, which is creeping up there. There is going to be a takeover bid of something, whether it will be yourselves or it could be Bank of Ireland, or whatever. 'Cause bear in mind that Bank of Ireland and AIB need each other at the moment, even on a friendship basis. It might not even be an Irish bank. It could be a British bank who takes you over, but somebody's going to snap. Something's got to break, and I'm a shareholder of all the banks, and I can see this happening. You've got to have a war chest. Bear in mind that I hate to say it, but you owe the government a few bob, and the government is still there, and they'll be looking for their money and everything else. The question is, if the banking is so tied up now, it's unbelievably tied up in every possible way. It's nice to come around to the various meetings and to receive umbrellas. The last chairman gave me an umbrella. He was at Alliance & Leicester. He was an Englishman, may I say, and he was a very nice friend. I've lost touch with the things. There's one man here today who was the registrar in AIB. He might identify himself, but he's here today 'cause he walked past me, and I saw him the other day. He knew where the AIB building was. The AIB was so generous, it was unbelievable, between pens and umbrellas and T-shirts and caps and God knows what else. Anything you wanted, you'd get off AIB, and they had 10 office blocks, but it all came crashing down. You know, the history of banking is unbelievable. I knew of AIB when it was Munster & Leinster, 'cause my family, which was the Gallaghers who are the builders in Tubbercurry, used to borrow off Munster & Leinster. You know, I hate to say it, but banking has gone into a new era now, and it could be very shelves and takeover bids. I hope the press is listening to this, 'cause I'm telling you from the horse's mouth. I've no shortage of money. I have a big cash balance for takeover for buying shares. My shares were because the branch manager in Bray didn't know who I was. Branch manager wasn't on the ball. Got bounced, and I got charged EUR 10 for the privilege of bouncing it simply because I wrote a GBP 20,000 check. Well, they should know who I am by now, of which I could have covered. If you could do something with those issues, I would be very grateful. Oh, thank you. I would be very upset to see AIB get taken over, by the way. Indeed. It'd be no skin on my nose, but personally, it would be great. Because now that I have a company secretary at both banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, and I know them both personally, I will be, shall we say, I like to do jobs personally, but it's. I have to do my banking through my wife. My wife goes down and 'cause I haven't been well for many, many months, and she has to go down and get the money for me, which I have in my pocket. I'm not short of money, but all I'm saying to you is have those cash reserves ready. You might have to do a counter bid. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Somebody is watching you. They're all watching. Yeah. We're a building company. There's Cairn Homes. Cairn Homes are on my doorstep. I'm a big shareholder of Cairn Homes. I'm a big shareholder of Glenveagh. I'm a big shareholder of which used to be Abbey, which is Gallagher Holdings. Okay. I am one of the Gallaghers. I'm not as sharp or unstraight as my brother Charles is. I'm very straight. Okay. If I don't like you, I'll soon tell you where to go. No. I do like you. That's it. I am sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No. Thank you. Mr. Deputy Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher, for these comments and. Straight from the horse's mouth. No. Not quite beating around the bush. No. I, we must prepare that conversation, and I notice the Finance Director at the end of the table there, jotting down your points. It's much appreciated. Thank you much. You put me personally under a bit of pressure with the former Chairman providing you with a brolly, and I'm a Scot, so I'll have to be under pressure to make sure you get a brolly next year. Your serious point is thank you very much. It's very valuable. Mr. Chair, I might be back again. Yeah. Okay. If I'm allowed in. Good luck on the health front as well, Mr. Gallagher, please. Thank you. Now, there are a couple other questions as well. We'll get the mics to you. I think it was this lady up here was first. I'm trying to just make sure from a Chair's point of view, if you don't mind, we just do it in order. But then it's this gentleman here, and then we'll come to you second in the front. Hi, my name is, yeah, Sapphire Proctor from Trinity College Dublin, and I'm here representing the Trinity Student Managed Fund, Europe's largest student-run portfolio with over EUR 350,000 worth of assets under management. Now, although today we are a small group, we are representing our 1,000+ current members. As shareholders of AIB, we are looking for a stronger commitment to ESG friendly practices. According to Amundi Ireland's nationwide survey in Ireland in late 2021, almost 80% of savers believe that responsible investing is important, but are unaware if their savings are being currently invested in ESG friendly products. As well as 86% of those with a pension investment or savings product place importance on environmental, social, and governance issues, but 82% did not know if their existing products were ESG friendly. This displays a clear appetite from the Irish population of savers for a green savings account. However, according to our research at the SMS, no Irish bank offers such a green savings deposit account, and this has shocked us. We, the members of Trinity Student Managed Fund, are looking to AIB as a leader in sustainability today to address this issue. ESG is a systemic issue and cannot be addressed piecemeal if AIB is going to continue paving the way. The provision of a green savings account is a fundamental step in addressing the current demands of Irish savers. This issue is of particular importance to us as students because the students of today are the long-term banking customers of the future. Therefore, this issue demands considerable attention in the near term. The type of deposit account that we, the students from Trinity College Dublin want, is just not available. Our generation of new entrants to the working world are seeking a green savings deposit account where our funds are used to address the climate and biodiversity crisis, as well as fund environmental and socially sustainable investments. We're unhappy with AIB's lack of response to the four out of five Irish savers who want their funds to be put to good use, but just don't know how. AIB needs to address this with a green savings deposit account. I hope that my presence here today sends a strong signal that action needs to be taken. The students at Trinity College Dublin, and we at Trinity Student Managed Fund, will be awaiting immediate action on the points I raised today. Thank you. Miss. Proctor, thank you so much for these. It's really brilliant to get that sort of feedback and really insightful points that you're making from the younger generation. It's fantastic, so thank you. I'll ask some colleagues to correspond just to come back to you on some of the specifics there. Hopefully as maybe we've not done enough in this actually this morning, but hopefully, can we just talk generically for a second and we'll try and answer your specifics. Because at the heart of everything we're trying to do here is actually around the sustainability agenda. It's not just words. We're actually doing things. If you picked up from Colin's, I know this is on the boring side, but we'll come to your point in a second. It's really important because it's at the heart and really what we believe will be one of the key differentiators of this cooperation going forward, you know. Sustainability, ESG at the heart of it. For instance, 22. Colin just reported a minute or two ago that 22% of our new lending actually in the Q1 was in fact, you know, ESG. You mentioned I think that a number of other things. For instance, we've got a climate fund, which was I think 10, but it's EUR 10 billion. We've just announced that EUR 10 billion, and so there's over EUR 2 billion, I believe, of funding in green sort of thing. I touched earlier in introduction of the board. We as a corporation have got a sustainability committee headed up by Helen Normoyle, who I introduced earlier, and really focusing that. You really should. I hope you. I presume you have read our sustainability report, yeah. There's really an awful lot that we are doing, yes, on the ESG front. We've got all our commitments, as you know, and you will read in the annual report, you know, in terms of us getting to 2030 with, you know, and what we're doing in terms of the lending portfolio in 2040 and 2050. Actually within even all these buildings, getting ESG compliant. I hope there is demonstration enough that to demonstrate that this is at the heart of the business. It's really interesting to hear your question. I don't know the answer specifically about this, the savings account. Colin, I don't know if you have a response on that, because it sounds like a great idea, to be perfectly honest. Thank you, Chairman. Your interest in this area, this is at the very core of our mission at AIB. We are by a margin the most ESG-focused financial institution in this country, and we're the clear leader in that space. On a global basis, we rank according to Sustainalytics, which has looked at over a thousand banks. We rank just outside the top 5% globally. We're going to do more. We're going to rank even higher on a global basis. We have the clear, as I said, we're clearly the domestic leader in this space, and we are intent on being a leader in a European context over the course of the next number of years. We've set out very clear ambitions in relation to our own operations in terms of our net zero in our own operations by 2030. We're making huge progress in that agenda. We've set out a new supplier code to which we hold our third-party suppliers accountable in relation to their commitment to sustainability. We've made a commitment that 70% of all our new lending will be green or transitional lending by 2030. We have focused our product efforts to date on mortgages. You would have seen throughout 2021 and indeed in the opening months of this year, we've continued to reduce our interest rates on our green mortgages to encourage our customers and to encourage our borrowers, our mortgage borrowers, to make good decisions about the homes that they are buying. I will, of course, be speaking to the products team, and your point is very well made, and we will have a look at what we can do as we continue to make greener our product suite over the next number of years. I talked to you. You want to follow up on that? Of course you have. Hi. There's no doubt that AIB is leading the way, and that's why we are here today speaking to you about this issue. The difference is that we're students, and students are savers, and we want to be involved in the sustainability. Nobody can get a mortgage without a savings account to save for that deposit. The mortgage is being less and less likely for our generation. We're a renting generation, and we want this savings account, sorry, to be able to afford that and to get involved in AIB sustainability. Leave that with us, Miss Proctor. I think that's the message. The chief exec is on the case. I think you've made a very articulate point. Actually, also, I hope I'm not dropping you in it. Can we not just do something? Can we not just engage with the students. Very happy to engage with the students, I think, hear your voice and react to it. Why don't we try and arrange something where we can get together with you, and we can explore these things further. Thank you so much for your question. It's really the heart. Now, hopefully, it's demonstrated. Hopefully, we're not just answering in a robotic way here. I hope you detected this is from the heart of the chief exec, and it's certainly my heart. If you were to ask me a different question, why did I join this institution, one of the big reasons was the passion that we hold for sustainability. It's particularly good to have this conversation with you, and you know, the younger generation. It's great. Thank you very much. Right. We've other questions. I promised you. I promised this gentleman first, and then don't worry, I will not forget you. Hello. My name is Noel Savage. I'm 60 years and a customer of AIB, 21 years retired. I have to say that I can't agree that the service is getting better. It's getting worse. I'm in Stillorgan. Stillorgan has inherited three other branches. Every day you go into the bank and use the ATM inside rather than the one outside, there's a problem. For example, an old lady, a widow, we went up and said, "You go ahead of me." She looked for her money. Out come her card. Out come her receipt. What was missing was the money. An investigation takes place, and they find, "That's happened. There's no money in it." The other thing that so many times, no receipt. Will we give you a pencil?" "No, I want the printed receipt." I just wanted to grant a few other things that happened to me. On one occasion, I had a record of never having failed to meet amounts of money, whatever it was, whenever it was due in all my life. I was in the bank, and I suddenly realized my bank cards are coming through. There, there's not a lot, but I realize in my current account it's very small. I said, "I better resolve this." I asked the person. "No, I can't deal with you." I then went to every desk. "No, we can't deal." No, I was talking about GBP 3,000 immediately in case this money come in, not because I hadn't got it. Eventually, I'm introduced to my relationship manager. I had to tell him I already have one, and she's called Anne Marie Savage, my wife. Anyway, he starts asking me, "What have you got? What are you doing?" When he gets above seven figures of liquid assets, he says, "God, you've got a lot of money." I won't tell you what I said back. I said, "Look, I only need this for 48 hours, right? Because I've money coming in case it misses, and I, for the first time, lose out." He says, "I have to apply to head office." 24 hours afterwards, he comes back and says, "I've organized you for a month." I asked for two days, and he charges me EUR 27 for the service. I'll go on to another one where the bank had a lot of cash flow, and they were looking for people who were reasonably liquid to take loans. I was offered a loan of anything like 5%. At first I said no, but anyway, I took EUR 100,000. I had a lot of assets that could cover this. I also gave collateral of 150% of the loan. About four or five months afterwards, one of the person who organized me says, "Oh, you're wanted inside. He wants to talk." I won't say it, but I've since found out he's known as Mr. Rottweiler. He's the guy that shows them all how to get the money. I go in, I said, "Listen, I'm very busy. What do you want to see me for?" "About this loan you got." "Yes." He says, "We have to regulate it." I said, "I signed a legally binding document. I gave you 150% collateral. What are you talking about?" "Oh, I want you to go onto a terminal." Well, I used a few words on it. I said, "If you want your money back, give me three days. I'll personally bring it in cash, and I'll tell you where I put it." As I'm walking out, I said one other name I want to mention, and I mentioned the Beef Baron. He roars me, "We got our money from the Beef Baron." I said, "Excuse me, you're not talking about... Sorry, can't use the word because this lady's here." He says... I said, "My clear understanding, Iraq-Iran War, he had huge amounts of money. He was servicing Iraq and Iran with stuff. What happened anyway was that, he got into trouble with the number of banks he was dealing with. He agreed, and we're up to negotiations with, to write off, I think it was EUR 250 million." The man said that didn't happen. What I want to really get on to is, I give examples of what happened to me. Okay. You have. Yep. Last week, the machine didn't work. That's the second time. Oh, by the way, I walked down to get in, and I'm following the steps when suddenly from the desk, I get this ignoramus shout, "What are you doing there?" I look around, say, "Who's he talking to? Is he talking to me?" I said, "I'm standing here. That's what I'm doing." "You jumped the queue," he said. I'm the end of the queue. You should have seen. We have another queue going around the bank and all around there. I said, I won't say what I said, but anyway, that happens. Really, have you got any particular question? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just conscious of, you know, other shareholders wanting to speak and. I'm sorry. They're not really interested there. Thanks very much. Oh, no, we are very interested. No, no, you're not. You want to brush off. Now I get on to it. No, no. Mr. Savage, we're very interested in that. If there's anything from Draco you wanna hear or there's certainly customer care information. I'll stop here. I'm telling you now the ATM machine didn't work. Right. Now, the Belfry Funds, I, like a lot of people, were persuaded to invest in the Belfry Funds. Again, two weeks beforehand, I get the list of my assets, and it comes to me immediately. We're going into property, blah, blah. I invest EUR 150 thousand and EUR 3 thousand to cover your cost, not my cost. Over the next few years, it goes up to 150 thousand to 225 thousand, right? Then the whole thing goes up. A lot of people were pushed to buy shares. I was on the team that were pursuing at the time. What happened, I said to him, "How are you fixed?" To my total horror, he said, "I have a big farm down in Cork. They persuaded me to take a EUR half a million loan." I said, "Go. Go on." See, not only that, and this is one you won't believe. They persuaded me to take GBP 1 million to buy shares in the bank, which are beginning to slip, right?" I said, "I cannot do that." They knew or should have known that these shares were going one way, down. He lost everything. Now, but with regard to, we got this letter saying, after the people who took court action, I was a member of them, but I went. I didn't think it was gonna succeed, and I was out of the country when it happened, so I didn't get in. We've got these letters. As you're aware, an investor in the Belfry Funds, we wrote to you previously to advise that AIB has established a program to review all investments in Belfry Funds on a case-by-case basis to determine if redress may be due in certain circumstances. Review and assessment of your Belfry investments are expected to conclude, now this is February and April, but this is after two years, and the outcome, including whether or not any redress is due, is expected to be communicated at that time. If you need any contact us. I can tell you will get queued quicker than get an answer on that phone. The only time I got through, the guy said, "I'm sorry, I know nothing. I'm just taking a call. I'll take your name." I never got anyone to come back to me. Anyway, then we get another letter. Now, this is the week we're gonna get a decision made. When we wrote you on the 24th of February, we said we expected to communicate the outcome of the review of your Belfry investment, including whether or not there would be any redress in April 2022. The review has taken longer than we expected. Now imagine, they're doing it for two years, and every three months, we're getting the same rubbish, the same statement, nothing else. We anticipate that we now expect to communicate the outcome no later than September 2022. That's six months away. We are sorry for this delay, but we are grateful for your patience. We've appointed an independent firm to assess aspects of our review, including the way in which we have assessed investment and how we would provide any redress. Now, what they're saying is nobody in the bank could have done it. This is bull, as you know and I know. If you need to contact us, contact us. Now, I've a bad mind, and I'm gonna tell you. Why do I believe this was pushed off? Last week it was announced, as Mr. Burgess said, that the bank was caught taking on outside mortgages and charging different rates, even though it was against the law. The Central Bank announced they were hitting us with EUR 70 million fine. I'd love to know what you think about that. Otherwise I'm finished. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Savage. Yes. Can I have my eight? No. Well, thank you for your comments. I mean, I'm not sure you got the question in a sense, but please, may I say we do take the customer as we talked before at the center of everything we're doing. So please don't assume what I'm suggesting. You go to the customer care that genuinely, if there's any specifics you know in regard to you and so please do. Okay. Right, we're going to Helen. Oh, Colin, do you want to add to that. We've got a- Provision that the group has made. We haven't yet concluded the enforcement phase on tracker mortgage examination. That's a provision that we have made in anticipation of a fine from the Central Bank. The provision was taken. When did we take that provision? End of last year. End of last year. It was disclosed when we took the provision. Yeah. Publicly. Okay, we're going to move on. Sorry, it's been. Sir, microphone's coming to you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I had a question on. Can you just give me your name, please? My name is Brendan Ryan. Yeah. I'm just a small shareholder. How long- Very small shareholder. I just have a question in relation to the Belfry investment. In fact, I was going to ask a question about it, but I want to just ask a more general question about the Belfry scheme. As I recall, last July, the High Court, the Commercial Court settlement was reached in respect of about 270 cases. Mr. Hunt, CEO, said in August that the bank would be proactive in obviously implementing the settlement and also in dealing with people who were not included in that, in the original 270. In spite of the large number of. It's 270. The case was in fact a kind of a test case in respect of which was finally settled. Now, I just want to ask two questions in relation to this. Yeah. First of all, in relation to the 270 people whose cases were settled, and Mr. Hunt indicated in August that a provision of the order of EUR 100 million was being set aside, EUR 100 million, and to include compensation to the investors, and also to include legal costs. I was just wondering how much of that hundred million has been actually paid out. And in particular, roughly what proportion of these cases have been settled? How has progress been? How much progress has been made in resolving the 270? In addition to those 270, there were about 40 other people who had taken legal proceedings. As my friend over here said, that some people dropped out at an early stage, other people persisted. Now, there's one specific case I have in mind, not me, but I know of at least one specific case where the person wrote to the solicitors for AIB after the settlement in July. They wrote again in September. They were referred to the legal department of AIB here in this building at this address. They wrote in September to the legal department. They are still waiting for a reply to that letter in spite of a number of follow-up letters. No reply to the follow-up letter. Now that's just one case. The general question, how are you getting on in settling the 270 cases? And secondly, what about the other 40 or thereabouts. What are these people to do? Are they to institute new proceedings and start the whole thing again? They paused. The cases are still there. They're still on the books of the High Court. They were only paused pending the test case, if you as it were. Now, should they start up proceedings again? Okay, thanks for these two questions, Mr. Ryan. We'll deal with the general ones. Anything on a specific case basis, you'll fully understand we wouldn't want to be discussing in this forum. I'll ask actually Helen to address these. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. Mr. Savage has the correspondence from us. The review is underway. It goes back to investors and who invested, as you know, from 2002 to 2006. Unfortunately, given the passage of time, it has taken us longer than anticipated to collect the files. We are engaging with various stakeholders. We're working within a regulatory framework to come up with a redress program which will consider on a case-by-case basis, as outlined, each investor's circumstances, and there are approximately 2,500 investors. That includes the investors who were part of the litigation. That includes the 40 or so investors you mentioned who had litigation which has been paused. All 2,500 investors will be considered as part of our redress program. We do apologize, it is taking longer than anticipated, but it is a program that's underway, and we do hope to communicate again with investors ahead of September, but there are a number of stakeholders that we engage with. Finally, Mr. Ryan, with regard to a letter that came into the AIB legal team, which is my team, I apologize if that hasn't been responded to, and I'm very happy to talk to you at the end of the meeting. Okay. Thanks, Helen. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. Oh, you have a follow-up. Yes. Very briefly, can you indicate any kind of timeline for dealing with these cases? It's an urgent matter. Some of these people are quite old, and they need the settlement. It's not just. I think. You know, in a couple of years' time. They need it now. Oh, yeah. Well, we hope before the end of September of this year. Later this year? Yeah, before September of this year. I mean, can they even expect engagement? Well, we are writing to investors regularly. Yeah, because you know, this has been a problem, even engagement, you know, never mind. The same letter every time you send. No, I appreciate, Mr. Savage, this is frustrating. It's the same letter. This one says, "The review and assessment of your investment, in fact, expected to conclude in April." Now it's literally six, nine months after you started. What more do you have to know? Who owns. Who's the person? Yeah. What does he owe, and where did he get the loan documents invested? Nothing else. Okay. You're going to intellectual and pick something and drop it. Okay. Thank you. I mean, this is a legacy issue, if you like, but it's still unfortunately, in spite of Mr. Hunt's good intentions last August to be proactive in settling it and resolving and moving on. I mean, the bank needs to move on from this issue, get it settled. Unfortunately, the implementation of it is certainly lacking. Okay. Thank you. Any final questions from the floor? No. Thank you. We can move to the next, the third and final segment on questions is just if there's anybody on the phone lines been listening in today as well. I think I'm getting a signal that there is nobody on that. Just double-check at the back there. No, that's a no go. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for that, discussion, debate, and question session. Thank you very much. Now the polls. We're onto the polls now. We will now proceed to hold the polls of the resolutions, as I promised and as we proposed today. Votes may be given by registered holders of ordinary shares present here in person or by proxy, and of course are entitled to vote. Every such holder has one vote for every ordinary share held. I will vote on any of these shareholders who've submitted a valid proxy, appointing myself as chairman to vote on their behalf. I should mention that shareholders, for those shareholders who have already lodged a proxy, obviously there's no need to complete a poll card, unless of course you're changing your voting intentions. The poll card is on the reverse of the proxy form. I will now ask shareholders present who wish to complete polling cards to complete, sign, and deposit them in the ballot box in the room. Where is that? Right at the back. That's at the back of the room. Should anyone have any questions on the poll procedure, please ask Mr. Wilson or a representative from our registrars. The polls will close just after, immediately after the meeting closes, and the votes cast will of course be verified under the scrutiny of Computershare registrars. As normal, the results of the poll of these resolutions proposed will be announced publicly later today by the company on the RNS, the Regulatory News Service. It will be available, of course, on our AIB website. Ladies and gentlemen, that really concludes the proceedings for today. It only remains for me to thank you. It's good, as I said at the top of the meeting, it's good to be back physically rather than on sort of video. I thank you for coming today, and I thank you for the questions. I also thank you for your support for the AIB organization. We don't take that lightly. We appreciate every single shareholder input. I just end by wishing you and all your families continued good health in the future, and we look forward to seeing you of course in a year's time at the 2023 AGM. The two Computershare, Michelle Cantwell and James Mahoney are there with the poll boxes, so they can come to you if you have a poll card that you'd like. The poll boxes are coming round now as we speak. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Chairman.