The chief executive of Ulster Bank in Ireland says there's evidence that some Irish people are deliberately not paying their mortgages.
Jim Brown says there's usually a link between mortgage arrears and unemployment levels.
He says this has remained the cases in Northern Ireland, where there has never been any public discussion of the possibility of personal debt being wiped off or forgiven.
But Mr Brown says the same link in the Republic broke down two years ago.
He added that the interest rate on the average tracker mortgage has fallen from 5.5% to 1.5% in the last two years - but that the number of people in arrears has risen in the same time.
He said that while other circumstances could play a factor, it was reasonable to conclude that some people had simply decided to stop meeting their mortgage repayments.
