Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses to the committee. When I listened to the comments earlier about tracker mortgages and the rage inside me was growing stronger and stronger because it was being passed off as a case of the bank not communicating or performing and giving the information that was required and that this is an industry-wide issue.

Reference was made to the redress scheme, trying to right the wrongs and that the bank apologised again to its customers, but this was not just an information flaw. It is not connected but in response to our questions the salaries of the senior staff in Permanent TSB were provided. Some of them are earning up to €500,000. They watched these individuals lose their homes. The bank took the homes from some of those individuals. In my view that was daylight robbery by a financial institution which took money from its own customers. When that was pointed out by those very same customers, the bank denied it. When the Financial Services Ombudsman said that the bank was wrong and the customers were right, the bank fought the ombudsman. When the High Court told the bank that it was wrong and the customers were right, it fought the High Court and went all the way to the Supreme Court. Some of the customers who were robbed also had their houses taken off them as well. The bank then tried to pass it off as an information issue and said that it was an industry-wide issue. This was not just a small little error within the bank.

I met with one of those customers who had a letter saying that she should voluntarily surrender her family home, with arrears of just over €400. It was the first time ever she was in arrears. I looked at the contract and it was as plain as day that the individual was entitled to go back onto a tracker rate. That was one of the appeals that went to the Financial Services Ombudsman. If I did that - if I took €20,000 from an individual I would be locked up in Mountjoy, but unfortunately the history in this State is that bankers can rob their customers. I do not target this at individuals but I am talking about institutions, and then dress it up as a redress scheme. The bank will give back the money and no heads will roll within the bank. That is how a lot of people feel and while I welcome the apology given by the witnesses, have they apologised for taking the Financial Services Ombudsman to the High Court? It was only when the Central Bank said it was not about the 80 cases before the FSO but in 1,300 cases the bank had taken money from customers and some of them were left so high and dry that their family home was taken from them. I want the witnesses to respond to that because that is how many people feel about what the bank has done.

The words that have echoed in this chamber about it being a question of information and an industry-wide issue are trying to deflect from the responsibility. Mr. Masding is the CEO who oversaw the appeal to the Supreme Court and who allowed those people to be overcharged by the bank. He oversaw a process whereby they were being fought tooth and nail through the courts. What the bank has done is appalling. I did not intend to take this line but the witnesses have enraged me in terms of the way they have presented the situation, which is inappropriate given the scale and the suffering involved. No redress scheme will ever be able to make right the difficulties some of those individuals, some of whom I know personally, went through. They had to make sacrifices and suffered stress and anguish and there were health implications of all of that because of what the bank did. To categorise it as not providing people with the proper information and to say it was an industry-wide problem is disrespectful. I am appalled that is the type of approach the witnesses took today.