Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect, the clarification came after the last meeting. I told the witnesses at that meeting exactly what the ECB has confirmed. I ask Mr. Groarke to talk to people in the industry, to legal advisers providing advice to banks and to other bankers. I am sure there are conversations at different events. The witnesses will recognise that what happened was that Permanent TSB constructed a split mortgage in a way that fell foul of the laws that exist today. The split mortgages of Permanent TSB's competitors, however, did not fall foul of the laws. Some of the issues that the witnesses identified on the proportion of warehousing are a part of that but only a part.

I did not need the ECB to tell me that. The problem was that Permanent TSB was marching ahead and selling all these loans to the vulture funds. Permanent TSB has a duty of care to people who pay their mortgages every single month. These 4,600 did that. Permanent TSB completely abdicated that duty of care. It was a bit too tricky or difficult for Permanent TSB, so it announced, in the absence of any clarification from the ECB, that it was selling the whole lot.

That is wrong on all levels. Permanent TSB has now done the right thing in pulling them from Project Glas, but that decision, taken at board level by the bank, was wrong. The board did not have the information. If the bank needed clarification, it should have waited for that and it should have taken the right decision, which it is now doing. I want to tease out exactly what that decision is. Can Mr. Masding acknowledge that the decision taken by his board at that time to announce the sale of those 4,600 split mortgages, which are performing was wrong and that he should have waited until he had full clarity from the ECB on its definition of the bank's split mortgages?