Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They would have been communicated with. On existing staff mortgage accounts - the staff two-year fixed rate - it states that they would revert to tracker mortgages. The bank's staff are watching these hearings. I received an email from one staff of member who is in this cohort that the bank has deemed non-impacted, which means that it will not give them back the money that they are entitled to plus compensation. This is an internal email from the following day. I refer to the original communication which indicates that the bank's staff member is entitled to roll on to an ECB tracker plus 0.75%, which, by the way, the staff member always believed because, when the staff member took out the fixed rate, that was the understanding. The following day, the staff member emailed the bank to query the position regarding the tracker rate mortgage. The reply states that it is in reply to an email the staff member sent to a more senior person in the bank, that the staff member is on a fixed rate mortgage until a certain date in 2009, that the staff member's mortgage will then automatically revert to the staff tracker currently at 4.5%, and that they can let the staff member know at that time what the staff member's repayments will be at that time. That issued from personal lending.

These are the guys in respect of whom the bank is still closing down the hatches and stating that they are not entitled to it. The bank can provide us all this stuff about how it told them it was but it was a wee bit vague and then the bank clarified it a couple of weeks later, but there are internal documents here. This individual reached out to the bank just to be sure. The individual did so because there were options at that time for that individual to break the fixed rate and go on to a tracker, which was still available in the market but which would quickly be shut down. The bank denied that individual and the other hundreds of bank staff members those opportunities.

I say this to Ms McDonagh. We need to get to a point when we are talking about other issues in banking, such as the business towns initiative. I am sure she would like to be talking about that. In terms of support for the community, there are good staff in my local area. We need to talk about issues such as how we look at the pillar banks but we will not get to that point because for four years with other bankers have told us blatant lies - their version of the truth. We are only getting to this point. For God's sake, Bank of Ireland came in here at one stage and told us there were 602 impacted customers.

I ask Ms McDonagh how long must we fight Bank of Ireland to get these extra two hundred customers their right, what they are entitled to. I ask her to look at that. She talks about being customer-centric. No doubt this communication is vague in the extreme. I would say it is clear that they were entitled to it. This email is clear. This email from the bank tells that individual the day after it sent out the original communication, when he clarified this, that his mortgage was moving to a tracker. How can Ms McDonagh sit there and tell me that she will stand over that person not being deemed impacted upon, which means the person will not get his or her money back?