Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will come back to the responsibility issue. We have heard similar stuff from AIB. It is beyond belief. The issue here relates to Bank of Ireland's staff. The witness gave us the number of impacted persons who have been restored in tracker mortgages. There are currently large numbers of Bank of Ireland staff still being denied the tracker mortgage and the bank is still in breach of the law in relation to them. I will give one example of many concerning individuals on a two-year fixed rate of 3.59%. This was around 2009.

The bank promised them they would roll over onto a staff tracker mortgage of ECB plus 0.75%. I will read out some internal documentation that may be of interest to Ms McDonagh. It was circulated to all the members of staff. It says:

Existing staff mortgage accounts will appoint staff to a two-year fixed rate, currently 3.59%. Staff who are currently on staff two-year fixed rates, currently 3.59%, will roll to ECB plus 0.75% with no benefit in kind, BIK, implications, as per their original signed mortgage agreement, at the end of the two-year fixed period. Staff will receive notification 30 days prior to the end of their fixed-rate term. This notification will offer a range of fixed and variable rate products. If you do not respond to this notification your account will automatically default to the staff tracker ECB plus 0.75%.

Ms McDonagh spoke in her opening statement about the examination. She said the reasonable expectations of customers regarding their tracker mortgage had to be considered in the context of information provided by the bank. Those are her words. Given this internal document and given individuals who were on the two-year fixed rate are not deemed impacted after being looked at by the witness's bank, does Ms McDonagh believe she is in breach of that comment? Beyond doubt those people had a reasonable expectation they would be rolling on to the tracker mortgages. The same document states: "if you do not respond to this notification your account will automatically default to the staff tracker ECB plus 0.75%".