Mr. Padraic Kissane:

No, because trackers are variable loans. A tracker and a standard variable rate mortgage are the same thing. The underlying variable basis of the loan was established at the outset and was never altered. The only thing that altered was the ECB rate. If a person has a fixed-rate mortgage and comes into money and pays, for example, €100,000 off the loan, there is a cost. Ironically, very few banks ever hedged fixed-rate mortgages and they took the chance that they would continue to make money from them. The bond issued yesterday was oversubscribed at 0.68% for seven years. That is the rate at which Irish banks are borrowing money and not one bank in Ireland is losing money on a tracker mortgage, apart from Danske because its rate is 0.2%. According to the banks themselves, it is that they are not making enough money from them, though they made a loss for a period when EURIBOR and the ECB rate went in different directions. Recently, EURIBOR has often gone lower than the ECB rate and is at a minus figure at the moment.