Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I see from the questionnaire that there are still 53,000 mortgage accounts on standard variable rates, SVRs. Given what Ms McDonagh said about nine out of ten new mortgage drawdowns starting on a fixed rate these are, in effect, legacy accounts. The bank's variable rates are high because they are not its core offering, at 3.9%, 4.2% and 4.5%. I am concerned that a lot of the bank's customers are still paying more than they need to. The bank has written to them but can it do more? There is inertia among some mortgage holders and this is frustrating for me and members of the committee. We feel consumers need to do more to get better value for their mortgages.

I imagine Bank of Ireland still has customers with low loan-to-value mortgages who are still stuck in the band greater than 80%, while paying at a rate of 4.5%. I am unsure whether Bank of Ireland has that granularity of detail, but it is a source of frustration. What more can it do to help its customers to get the best value from the mortgage products they are on?