Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know how we will address the matter as we all know nobody will be held accountable in any of the banks for this. It will be explained as a systems failure, as everything is that happens in the banks. People lose money and their house and people take their own lives arising from decisions taken by bankers and explained as a systems failure. It is what really infuriates me. The bank carried out an investigation and identified 1,372 customers. It was going to leave it at that until the Central Bank intervened and said a further investigation had to be carried out. After that, it identified another 579 customers and the witnesses have told us between five and ten of those lost their house or home. I cannot imagine me or my family being put into that position. Permanent TSB was going to close the book on this and the Central Bank only acted after a long period and when customers took the bank to the courts.

I agree with the outgoing senior figure in the Central Bank in that until there is personal accountability within the financial sector, this will continue to go on. It might be something else in two or five years but it will happen until individuals are held to account. I hope this Government or the courts take on board the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission published many years ago that would allow for class action suits. The Chairman spoke about people on prevailing rates of 3.25% or people who lost their homes who do not have the resources or means to take bankers and well-resourced corporations to court individually but they could take class actions against bankers. This is not acceptable.

How does the bank explain that it was closing the book on this matter? It investigated the matter but closed the book. Nonetheless, two years later we find another number of customers where the bank wrongly took their homes or saw results where their homes were lost?