Professor Philip Lane:

The base line in the review is the contract. It is a question of whether people are being restored to the rates they are entitled to under the mortgage contracts they agreed. As part of the examination, which will look at the work of the banks and their external advisers, the Central Bank will send out staff with our external advisers to go over what happened and to do some cross-checking.

For those who are unhappy or who disagree with the assessment, there will be an appeals mechanism whereby the individuals will have access to independent legal advice to pursue appeals. Reference was made to particular cases. As always, if there are circumstances relating to individuals and these are shared with the Central Bank, we can look into that as part of our supervisory process. The base line is the particular contract of the customer. Over time, all manner of trackers were issued at different margins for different years. That is why it takes so much time to do this. Over the years the nature of those contracts has varied. The understanding of individuals of what their contract specifies is critical.