Mr. Padraic Kissane:

In the UK, a group I would describe as amateur investors, for want of a collective way of describing them, challenged West Bromwich Building Society. There is also a Bank of Ireland issue pending because of the tracker product. There is something astonishing about tracker mortgages. Would they prefer that the headline that appears in the Irish Independentis "Padraic Kissane introduces tracker mortgages to the marketplace"? If they keep challenging me, I will do it. Tracker mortgages are freely available in the UK currently at 1.78% above UK base rates - 20 year fixed at 2.1% in Crédit Agricole in France and 2.05% fully fixed for the 15 years. How quickly would they bring a tracker product back then? They will not do one mortgage. I have called it a cartel before. It suits the banks perfectly that other entrants are not coming into the market. I hear the resistance to being able to repossess homes. I am not for one minute stating there are not people who have deliberately used the situation to stop paying their loans. I can tell the committee for certain today that I do not have one because I can see through them. I only engage people where I know there is a case. I had a win percentage level in the ombudsman's office of 76% when the average upholds were between 10% and 12%. It is not because Padraic Kissane is a walking genius but because I knew how to present a case. The question I had was how did I lose 24% because I did not bring a case unless I had one? It is not the 76% that I was highlighting but the 24% that was lost. With the present incumbent, Ger Deering, there is a complete change in how the ombudsman investigates and checks cases. That should help in bringing the cases to it if customers are not redressed correctly. To set a 10% of overcharged interest as a base level of compensation and then design it as a ceiling of compensation is also wrong.