Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

However, is the Central Bank willing to publish that or ask the banks to publish it? It is crucial that people know what the rate is or what the Central Bank and the bank believe.

I will give an example and I will ask the Governor to answer that question. I want to pick up on something Mr. Sibley said. He talked about the ambiguity in the contracts. There is no doubt that there is ambiguity in the contracts and they should never have been allowed to be authorised. The Central Bank at that time should not have allowed this. I will give an example of a contract and a letter of offer with a particular bank. The letter of offer states clearly that it is a tracker rate of the ECB interest rate plus a maximum of 1.1 percentage points. It continues to offer a three-year fixed-term contract. The individual took out the tracker mortgage which was on the letter of offer at 1.1 percentage points above the ECB interest rate and fixed it for three years. However, the contract contained the following terminology, "a tracker mortgage loan and the rate applicable will be the rate appropriate to the balance outstanding at the time of expiry of the fixed-rate period". According to the bank that means what was stated in the letter of offer has no standing whatsoever and that it will apply whatever it wants after the expiry of the fixed-rate period.

I am making a point about ambiguity in contract. Is there not an issue in contract law? If there is ambiguity in a contract, it has to come down in favour of the customer in this case. If somebody has a letter of offer which stated at the top a tracker mortgage of the ECB interest rate plus 1.1 percentage points and allowing them to fix it for three years and then finds this terminology in the terms and conditions of the contract that they signed, it is hard for anybody to understand what that really means. Should the Central Bank not come out and state that that interpretation is not right and that the letter of offer should stand in these cases? This is one of the issues under examination. This is one of the issues the Central Bank has dealt with. I am sure this customer would be disappointed at today's comments from the Central Bank that it believes that what the bank is doing on the interest rate is correct.