John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Senator Kieran O'Donnell said we are reaching the end. I do not think we are reaching the end. I think we have quite a way to go because a significant number of issues still remain. I am taking Ms McDonagh at face value, based on her experience and on what she has said about the purpose of the bank now. She has said that it is customer-centred and so on. I want to get an understanding. She spoke about compensation in her opening remarks. We get letters and emails all the time. Why does Ms McDonagh believe her staff - the employees of her bank - are writing to us on an ongoing basis to highlight the fact that they feel they are not being treated properly? Given what she has said about how the bank treats its staff the same as its customers, is it not odd that they are writing to us to say they are not getting fair play?

The second point I want to make relates to compensation. Ms McDonagh has said she deals with particular cases. A lady wrote to us in December to say she had been overcharged by €1,355 a month. She said that if Bank of Ireland had come clean at any point over the years between 2008 and 2012, she and her family would have kept their home, their tracker and their lives. She said she would have had enough money to pay for a consultant in the course of the birth of her child, who was born with a disability. She mentioned that a second child is receiving the services of a psychologist. She says her life has been destroyed and broken and her relationship and family are destroyed. It was in December of last year that this lady wrote to us to that effect. What method is available within the bank to reach out to that family? How does it construct a compensation package around an extreme case like that? What flexibility is there? Is there humanity and compassion within the bank to touch that person's life again and to assist her?