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

We will conclude our meeting now. I thank the witnesses for their presence and their contributions. Before we adjourn for the next session, I want to pick up a point that was made about some borrowers having their heads in the sand. In fact, I have come across a huge number of borrowers throughout the country who have their heads well out of the sand and are being treated outrageously by the banks. When they turned to consumer protection, they believe that the agencies responsible for consumer protection, be it the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission or the Central Bank, abandoned them. They turn up in these repossession courts and are confronted by the heavyweight lawyers etc. on the side of the banks and they are there representing themselves.

All the registrar is doing is being fair and kicking the can further down the road. I have come across many cases in which the individuals and families concerned have tried desperately to engage with the banks. The banks just ignore them. Every single bank would have a list of cases like that where people are being ignored. The consumers in this area and in respect of the tracker mortgages feel totally abandoned, as if nobody cared about them in the slightest. That is a frightening position for anybody in a republic to be in. It is just inconceivable that they would be left in this way. There have been so many deaths by suicide, families broken up and so on, yet the State is doing nothing.