Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, it is a very factual point. This is the problem. The Irish public put billions into Bank of Ireland. If an individual owed money to Bank of Ireland for a mortgage, and I was in practice for years, the bank took on those customers. It was there to collect the money. I find it incredible with regard to these 6,000 customers. The bank was clearly fighting with the Central Bank before Ms McDonagh's arrival with regard to a technicality.

We are on a committee discussing this, but the devil is always in the detail. That is the bank's business but we have to probe the question. How can Ms McDonagh stand over a situation based on a technicality? Someone could have taken out a mortgage on 31 December 2006 and another customer could have taken out a mortgage on 1 January 2007. Both are identical, but one person is covered and the other is not. This is totally against the spirit of why the Irish public put money into the banks. The money held for people who took out mortgages before 2006 was their money, it was not the bank's money. If the roles were reversed and a customer owed money to the bank, whether the mortgage was taken out pre-2006 or post-2006, the bank would have gone after that customer in the same fashion. There has to be fairness.

Can Ms McDonagh stand over this? I hope Ms McDonagh was horrified when she went in and that she just turned around to the board and stated the bank had to stand over these tracker mortgages. Can Ms McDonagh see the exasperation? I find it incredible. I am actually shocked. The bank has 3,400 affected customers and another 6,000 on top, which is not quite double, but who make up at this stage two thirds of the affected trackers. The bank was basically trying to keep them out on a technicality and continue - for want of a term where I want to be direct because I very rarely am - to rob their money. Was Ms McDonagh horrified when she went in there?