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

That brings me to my final point, which is reverting back to the whole tracker and prevailing rate issue. It is an ask on my part because there are a lot of people who are watching in about this issue or who will read the transcript later on. I encourage AIB to move away from what I would regard as an overly legalistic approach to this issue. I know that Ms Dooley has a job and she is essentially the chief legal person within the bank but the real test of culture change comes when a bank is faced with a situation where there is the bounce of the ball. Does the ball bounce on the side of the consumer or on the side of the bank when it comes down to a choice? AIB needs to replace the thought process of what it must do with what it should do. For me, looking at the paperwork and the documentation objectively, the bounce of the ball on this issue should favour the consumer because when one looks at the paperwork, it is very evident that there is an omission in the mortgage contract. The mortgage contract refers to a tracker margin in another part of the document and it is just not there when one goes looking for it. What AIB is doing as a bank, from my perspective, is that it is benefitting from an omission in its own mortgage documentation, and that is wrong.

If I were Dr. Hunt coming in as a fresh new CEO, I would look at this again and I would remove the risk, which is very significant, that the High Court or the ombudsman will eventually force the bank to change its position on this issue. Given the journey that AIB has travelled as a bank and the work it has done to repair its reputation in dealing with the other tracker issues, it would be a great shame if AIB was forced to make a change of direction on this issue. I will leave that as a final message. AIB should move away from that legalistic approach of what it has to do and replace it with a thought process of what it should do to demonstrate that AIB really has changed as a bank and is putting the interests of consumers first. Dr. Hunt has an opportunity to do it with this issue and I encourage him to do so.