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

If I was a customer I would like to hear that, but do I believe it? No, I do not. I will tell Professor Lane why. Some of the banks which have appeared before the committee told us that customers would not be paid until next year, perhaps even late next year. One bank brazenly told us that it would not meet the deadlines. Its representatives sat there and told us that the bank would not meet the deadline and it would not give us the figures we asked for. They told us that, in fact, the bank would not tell us anything until this thing was over. That is the kind of respect it showed for the Irish Parliament. That bank is licensed in this country. I do not have great faith in it.

The other issue is that in 2016, the Central Bank spend €7.3 million on legal fees. I wonder how much will be spent in 2017. I am not critical of the Central Bank spending the money - it has to - my criticism is that it has to. My criticism is that the banks are forcing the Central Bank and the Irish taxpayer to pay even more money in the course of 2017 to try to resolve this issue. It will cost even more money. In terms of professionals, did Professor Lane ever ask the auditors or the legal advisers in those banks about this particular tracker issue? Did they know about it? Surely if they audited the books in the way in which they should, they would have known about it. Is it not amazing that every single bank had the same problem at the same time? They all had tracker issues. It has happened to them all and they are all fighting it in the same way. Can we not call it what it is? It is a cartel. It was an arrangement. They were going to dump on the customers and remove their rights to trackers. That is what they did right across the board.