John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Sorry for interrupting. You can have all that but what I am hearing this morning is an unwillingness to stack up the numbers for us here, and an unwillingness to play hardball with the banks. It would seem to me that you either feel bullied by them or that you are fearful of them, but you are not engaging as I would expect you to engage with the banks in regard not to just matter, but to the other matters which the committee will touch on later. I am shocked by the fact you can tell us that the banks do not have sophisticated IT systems. When they wanted to pick out thousands of Irish people and chase them down relentlessly to pay their mortgages, they had all the systems in the world. They could do what they liked and they did what they liked with small businesses and with individual people with mortgages. It is shocking and shameful that the Central Bank cannot force them into a position where they are at least showing good faith with the people we represent, because those people have been pushed into poor health, some into suicide, because of the actions of banks. It is quite shocking that you deal with this in the way you have up to now. I ask you to consider every single question that members are asking you and to remember the customers you are supposed to be protecting.