Ms Francesca McDonagh:

I thank the Senator for his questions. I started in my role in Bank of Ireland on 2 October 2017. I had begun to read and understand key issues and key risks prior to arriving but it was not until I started in my role on 2 October that I could get to grips with the issue.

I have been disappointed with how customers have been treated. I think we could have come to a conclusion to include the 6,000 customers potentially sooner. I feel the board believed and understood that both the legal and consumer protection perspective had been taken and that the voice of customer had been incorporated. It had but my view is that we could have gone further and we should have and we did. I recommended that we go further and give customers more of the benefit of the doubt to close this.

Coming in as a new chief executive of a very large bank, which had a history and heritage in Ireland, and which I think has an unique position in the Irish banking market and an unique opportunity to be the bank of Ireland and a national champion for banking in this country. My focus was on transforming the bank, improving our reputation among our customers, driving engagement among our people and in developing the team. I was keen to come to a resolution quickly to get the right outcome for our customers as part of that path or step towards improving and restoring the trust that we know is quite fragile in the banking sector.

In response to the Senator's question on whether the Central Bank of Ireland or the Bank of Ireland came to a conclusion on how to deal with the 6,000 customers, we engaged with the Central Bank of Ireland and it is on public record that it challenged robustly Bank of Ireland and the banks in general. I, together with the chairman of the board of Bank of Ireland had a meeting with the Minister for Finance. We were given very clear feedback about the need to address this issue. We do not operate in a vacuum. I was reading and looking at the media coverage. I watched the evidence of individuals who outlined their own experiences when they came before this joint committee. They were not customers of Bank of Ireland but I think the common themes about the impact that trackers had on individuals were very well felt.

As well as working on the detail, going through the customer journeys, looking at documentation and viewing it from a customer perspective, I made the recommendation with the full support of the board to increase the redress and compensation to include the 6,000 customers.