Mr. Ger Deering:

I suppose I would just say that the office has been working on trackers since 2009. There were decisions handed down that directed the banks to put borrowers back on trackers and as we know, that got frustrated through the legal system, the High Court and then on to the Supreme Court. We are very conscious of the suffering of people out there. I would, once again, say to the banks that they really need to come on board with the Central Bank process because we are ready to deal with individual complaints afterwards but that will take a lot more time than the Central Bank process.

The Chairman mentioned payment protection. It is interesting to look at the experience in the UK. There was a huge issue with mis-selling of payment protection in the UK and the regulator did not deal with it. It was left with the ombudsman service to deal with each individual complaint. They have been dealing with millions of them and it has clogged up their office. If the banks now co-operate with the process as quickly as possible, that is in the best interest of all of the people, whether they have complaints with our office or elsewhere.