Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Although I will come back in later on, what I really want to know is how this could happen. Professor Lane has said the practice was widespread - I think that is the term he used. It looks to me as if it was systemic. This would appear to be a wilful practice of customers being denied their contractual rights. It always seems to be the case that the ball hops against the customer, and it never seems to hop the other way in the customer's favour. People want answers as to how customers were being denied their contractual rights in terms of entitlement to a tracker mortgage rate. There are practices still going on. We are being told now that customers who, under the redress programme, are entitled to revert to a tracker rate are being given a tracker rate of 3.67%. That is a joke. The Central Bank has to go beyond giving a slap on the wrist to the banking system when this kind of thing happens. It looks systemic, it looks wilful and it is pretty much across all the main lenders. It is just not good enough. The question for the Central Bank is what it is going to do about it. Otherwise, it will keep on happening.