Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I appreciate that, the thousands of customers to whom these figures relate - the individuals and families affected - will take a different view of the way in which the Central Bank dealt with its responsibility in respect of consumer protection. For the record, the Central Bank has been quoted in publications such as the Irish Independent as saying it had been aware of this issue since 2008. In addition, the Central Bank has not disputed that the Financial Services Ombudsman wrote to the bank in 2009 asking for an industry-wide review. The point is that this review did not take place.

Notwithstanding the restoration by Bank of Ireland of 2,100 mortgage accounts to tracker mortgages in 2010-11, in excess of 10,000 customers - families and individuals - were ripped off by their financial institution over that period. This is a case of industry-wide theft. The banks inappropriately took money from customers and the Central Bank was aware that they were doing so. Professor Lane indicated that a court case impeded the actions the Central Bank could have taken. However, the actions it took in 2010 in respect of Bank of Ireland did not solve the problem. Bank of Ireland has just admitted it overcharged almost 4,000 customers and more than 600 other customers of the bank are entitled to revert to tracker mortgages.

How can the Central Bank, which was aware of the issue and wrote to the banks at that point, miss the fact that money was being taken from such a large number of bank customers? To quantify the issue, if it had been allowed to continue until the end of the mortgages, in excess of €500 million and possibly as much as €1 billion would have been taken from these customers by the banks. There are serious questions as to how the Central Bank missed this. It is appalling stuff. While I accept that Professor Lane was not employed by the Central Bank at the time, that people have been ripped off to such a degree indicates that the Central Bank failed on a massive scale to fulfil the consumer protection responsibilities the Oireachtas vests in it.

Professor Lane is familiar with the figures involved. We are talking about €90,000 per customer if this had been allowed to continue to its conclusion. Some customers have lost €25,000, while others have lost their houses or been declared bankrupt. As the Chairman noted, some experienced serious mental health problems, which have led to serious difficulties. Will Professor Lane explain the reason the Central Bank does not have in place sufficiently robust systems to spot or deal with the fact that more than 10,000 customers were being ripped off by their banks?