Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Masding still talks about Permanent TSB being a profitable and vibrant force focused on the Irish retail banking sector. If he puts on his marketing hat - his customer service hat - and attempts to win new business, while he has 79,000 customers paying well above what the odds might be, it does not suggest he is focused on attracting new business in the way any other business would be. He continues to create an exceptionally bad impression in the minds of that cohort of borrowers who, for one reason or another, are wedded to Permanent TSB. I talk to them on a regular basis, as, I am sure, Mr. Masding and some of his staff do. I speak to those in my constituency and beyond and they feel absolutely let down by all concerned that they are expected to carry the can for the issues that have arisen in Mr. Masding's institution because they are in a position to pay. It puts them and their families under extreme pressure on a monthly basis for the short-term - at least as far as the institution is concerned - righting of the business. It is a long-term commitment for them and it is having a detrimental impact on the way they and their families are living their lives. Mr. Masding can use the language of the banking world to explain away how or why he is doing what he is doing, but it sits very awkwardly on the shoulders of those people. I fail to understand how Permanent TSB cannot find a strategy, other than gouging 4.5% from the purses and wallets of these people, that still gets it to where it needs to be.