Let me first say a few words on the institutional method chosen to set up the SRF. As a Union institution, the ECB supports, as a matter of principle, recourse to the Union method and thus to Union law. The recourse to an intergovernmental agreement should only be seen as a temporary solution.
Ireland In Ireland for the past five years banking has not been profitable. This is largely because of the difficulty banks have had in coping with the legacy assets on their books. A large proportion of these assets yield little by way of interest because of the low euro area money market rates to which their yield is contractually set.