Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like other committee members, I welcome PTSB's approach in providing this information. It is helpful. Looking at slide No. 3, I acknowledge that there is momentum in the bank in the last couple of months to deal with the mortgage arrears crisis. Some of that momentum is taking homes from people through voluntary surrender. There is a substantial increase in split mortgages, etc. PTSB was atrocious at dealing with people in mortgage arrears and, in some cases, still is. Last time, the bank was very frank in saying it did not have a process and it is playing catch up but the impression that everything is fine in the offers it is providing to customers is wrong. Hopefully many of the customers who do not contact us or other public representative are being treated fairly and well by PTSB, but it is making offers to people to voluntarily surrender their family home.

I have sat with one family in particular at approximately 11 p.m. one night and pored over their details. They went into arrears of approximately €300 on one occasion, which they had paid off the following week, and the letter from Mr. Masding's bank stated it had adjudicated the situation and believed the best option for the family was to surrender its house. I said that has to be wrong and when the family contacted Mr. Masding's bank a couple of weeks later, one of the staff said these are computer-generated letters. As has been stated, there have been 1,200 additional voluntary surrender requests. Can Mr. Masding talk to me about the computer-generated letters and acknowledge that in some cases these letters are going to customers they should not go to and causing major distress to families? The letters are very clear. They say PTSB has made the funds available as a result of the Central Bank's guidelines and the customer can contact an independent accountant to adjudicate the offer, but the customer has 28 days to contact the bank with a decision.