Ms Francesca McDonagh:

I thank the Chairman for the question. Staff have the right to write directly to the committee. Obviously, I would always want our staff to feel they can escalate their concerns to their line managers or to me as part of an open and engaging culture in our organisation. We are encouraging a speak-up culture in which the more traditional hierarchical layers are broken down and people feel they can speak up and have their concerns addressed. Such a culture is engaging and successful. Staff members may have escalated the cases that have been mentioned to their line managers or to me. I do not know. If there are cases involving employees of Bank of Ireland, I would be very keen to look at them, as I would with any customers.

The Chairman mentioned a specific case in which someone wrote to him in December 2017 to set out the impact the tracker issue has caused in her life. I would be very keen to look at this individual case. I hope it is one we are dealing with as what we consider to be a "complex" case. It is clear that in this case, there are extenuating circumstances, there is vulnerability and distress has been caused. No financial framework can compensate for the human impact of what has happened to that individual's family. I recognised that in my opening statement and I have apologised for it. The only thing we can do right now is look at complex individual cases on a case-by-case basis. The people who are managing this are not contractors or new staff members. They have a great deal of experience of managing and resolving complex cases. If we do not resolve a case to the satisfaction of the customer, he or she can go to the independent appeals panel that is in place to have his or her case heard. I would like to think we would manage each case in a proactive and empathetic manner so that this is not necessary. If people feel they have not been treated fairly, we encourage them to exercise their absolute entitlement to go to the panel.