million has been paid out to date to these customers, with more to follow. of the 13, 600 additional customers accepted since october, 29 % have received redress and compensation of €87. 9m. we expect the remainder to receive their redress and compensation between now and end - june. lenders are counting the cost of this scandal. in addition to the redress and compensation we require them to pay, these institutions are bearing significant administrative costs to conduct the examination in line with our requirements. this can be seen in their provisioning statements and their staffing levels. by way of example, the main lenders have now made combined provisions of circa €900 million in respect of the examination, broken down as approximately €600m for redress and compensation and €300m for costs, while one lender recently disclosed that it had up to 500 people working on its redress scheme. these institutions also must repair damaged reputations, not only as a result of the original mis - handling of tracker mortgages but also due to the partial and delayed engagement of some lenders with the requirements of this examination. while the central bank ’ s view is that the vast majority of customers have now been identified, we will continue to review, challenge and verify the work undertaken by the lenders and complete our intrusive on - site inspection programme, which is probing lender compliance with all aspects of the examination framework and gathering evidence to support our enforcement activity. i acknowledge that this work has taken time to complete and i am conscious of the devastating impact that lenders ’ failures have had on customers, up to and including the loss of their homes and investment properties. i acknowledge also that no amount of money will ever fully compensate a person or family for the 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches trauma involved in losing their home. the central bank has heard many distressing personal testimonies from customers who have contacted us. our awareness of the harm caused to so many families has underpinned our drive to ensure all affected customers receive the appropriate financial redress and compensation, and that we leave no stone unturned in seeking evidence to support enforcement actions. the scale, range and complexity of the examination, in addition to the material deficiencies in certain lenders ’ responses, has required robust and sustained central bank intervention. this has resulted in many more customers being included, and lenders significantly improving both their redress and compensation proposals and their independent appeals processes, to the

. the argument is that more spending will make people better off. more demand encourages more supply, meaning more jobs and more investment. it ’ s supposed to be a virtuous circle. so the government starts spending money – as much as possible. it borrows from people ’ s pension funds. it borrows from the central bank and demands it buys its debt – which means printing money. it spends the foreign exchange reserves. and at first sight, it works. as scholars of populism have noted, the immediate consequence of these policies tends to be an economic boom. people who warn that populism is a disaster will look foolish. there is more growth and big wage increases and more jobs. but it doesn ’ t last. time and time again, the boom turns to bust. inflation shoots up and growth collapses. some populists realise their strategy has failed and change course. others put their countries through even greater pain. during the 1950s, the argentine president juan peron effectively aborted his populist programme when inflation neared 50 %. 2 in peru, alan garcia abandoned his stimulus programme in 1988, with inflation well over 1000 %. 3 in venezuela, inflation is expected to reach one million percent this year, 4 and people are fleeing the country to find food, but the policy direction still hasn ’ t changed. what is it about the populist recipe that goes wrong? the literature focuses on two kinds of constraints : inflation and the balance of payments. now these are things populists probably don ’ t see coming. they don ’ t understand the causes of inflation very well. and they may not even know what the balance of payments is. but these are powerful forces, and ignoring them doesn ’ t mean they will leave you alone. the inflation problem is fairly simple. if a government wants to stimulate demand, it will want low interest rates, and it will demand that the central bank print money to buy its bonds. this extra money does a couple of things. it raises demand, and with the economy running hot, firms and workers put up their prices. it causes the exchange rate to depreciate. and because people see the government is printing money, they start to put a lot of time and effort into figuring out where inflation is going, and raising their prices to keep ahead of it. this process then gets worse over time. in the first year, you get a fair amount of growth and a bit more inflation. in the second year