Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will not pursue it any further except to say I have read the Deloitte & Touche report and it did not shed any great light on the rights and wrongs of this situation. It does carry a lot of weight with me that a professional association would advise somebody not to suppress findings. If Professor Lane is saying that reforms took place subsequently in the areas identified in the audit, that gives more weight to the whistleblower’s allegations. Maybe we can pursue that another day. It is entirely justified to flag it.

I have been involved, as have many Deputies, in trying to assist people in mortgage arrears as a result of the mad lending by banks and in many cases encouraged by them, including this case, during the period of economic madness. At the end of very protracted negotiations in the case, finally a deal was done, payments were made, arrears were written off and an arrangement was reached between the bank and the individual. When this person, who was self-employed, with a small business, went back to the bank to get a small loan to keep the business going, the bank said the person was blacklisted for further credit because the original terms of the loan had not been fully discharged. Is that common practice? People who were caught up in a situation, created by the banks with reckless lending in the period of economic madness, and who have done their best to negotiate deals with them and have come to a resolution with them are blacklisted when they return to those banks. Is this going on and if it is, should it be? Is it allowed? Is it fair? Do we need action on it because it seems absolutely unacceptable?