Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. O'Keeffe. I will raise the general matters of the case; it is not a unique set of circumstances. The person involved is probably one of thousands of customers in this position. He is an EBS customer with a tracker mortgage issue. He was on a fixed rate and when that expired he moved on to a standard variable rate. At the end of the fixed rate period, tracker rates were available to new customers walking in off the streets. The rates were advertised and tracker rates were being made available. This man was not informed of all the options open to him. He was only told about the fixed and standard variable rate options. It is undisputed that if he had asked for a tracker rate, the bank would have said that he was entitled to one. The point is that the man had a theoretical right to access the tracker rate in that if he had known about it, he would have been able to access it. However, on the official documentation he was provided with, informing him of his contractual rights, the option of the tracker mortgage was not provided. The final response letter of the EBS states that staff do not provide advice on which interest option to choose, that this is the decision of the mortgage holder and that the obligation rests with the customer to advise the bank of his or her decision. That is absolutely fine, but under best practice and the spirit of the consumer protection code, this man would contend, as would I, that EBS had an obligation to provide him with advice about the full range of products available to him. It seems that this is contested by EBS and AIB.