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

I have been listening carefully to the responses of Mr. Stanley and Ms Arnett and reflecting on the lead up to this meeting and the language used in Mr. Stanley's opening statement. At one point prior to the meeting I was willing to accept that Mr. Mallon would not be here. Every business goes through changes and Ulster Bank is no exception to that. I have seen change in businesses. However, having reflected on that and the fact that, according to the witnesses, Mr. Mallon is working out six months' notice, Ulster Bank has a brass neck like no other I have seen because Mr. Stanley and Ms Arnett have put an opening statement before us this morning that would lead members to believe that Ulster Bank is putting the customer first. We have a moral obligation to be fair and to put things right as quickly as possible when we get it wrong. However, Mr. Mallon did not turn up here this morning but has a number of months yet to serve in the bank, which reflects very badly on it. Ulster Bank tried to get a different date for this meeting, in spite of other banks also being in a closed period, which is nothing short of obstruction of the process of the committee and our examination of the affairs of Ulster Bank in the context of tracker mortgages. The scant information that has been put before the committee today is a further example of almost an unwillingness to understand the scale of the difficulties it has created for people.

The witnesses could spend the day dealing with statistics and so on but I am going to look at facts. For seven years, Ulster Bank contested every case with Padraic Kissane and it learned nothing in that time. I will take the witnesses to correspondence from Ulster Bank customers, as referred to by other members. The committee is defending Ulster Bank customers but Mr. Stanley and Ms Arnett should be doing so as that is their job. All they are doing is playing with words and I do not accept half of what they say. We have received correspondence from a lady who was reinstated on her tracker in January 2016 and, to date, has not received a letter about redress. Before Christmas, she telephoned Ulster Bank to find out when she could expect to be repaid the money it wrongfully took from her. She was told it could not give her information and that nobody could tell her when that might happen but that it would be addressed in the second quarter. She had to pay considerable fees for various advice to deal with Ulster Bank in the earlier stages of her efforts to get what was rightfully hers. She will probably have spent between €6,000 and €8,000 on advice by the time the process concludes. Will Ulster Bank refund her that money?