Mr. Tom Kinsella:

The programme has been running for three and a half years. We have analysed more than 650,000 accounts and identified 40 groups of customers who have been impacted on. Where there is ambiguity, we have at all times tried to fall on the side of fairness and the customer. On the particular issue, the customers we are discussing did not have a tracker interest rate mortgage. They rolled off their fixed interest rate mortgage at a time when there was no tracker interest rate mortgage available at the prevailing rate. We are satisfied that if a tracker interest rate been available, it would have been priced at an unattractive rate. Our contention, therefore, is that customers suffered no detrimental impact. We took a long time to reach that view. We took on board conversations with the Central Bank of Ireland and the oversight of our independent overseers and are satisfied at this stage that the customers in question suffered no detrimental impact. There was, however, a service breach. We should have had a prevailing rate available, but we did not. The remedy is the €1,000 being offered, as well as €615 for independent advice. The customer, of course, has the right to appeal and take the matter further.