Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issue of tracker mortgages is not finished. There are 1,200 cases before the Ombudsman and others are and will be before the courts. Those cases, although yet to be adjudicated on, involve people who, rightly or wrongly, feel let down by the system and the banks.

The customers of some banks have challenged them legally. The banks are settling out of court with a confidentiality clause that means that there will be no knock-on effect on the other cohort of customers who fall within the same category. The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman has no insight into any of this. It has no information. One person may reach a settlement on the steps of the High Court, including a confidentiality clause, and the bank probably does not acknowledge that it has arrived at a financial settlement. Mr. Justice Hedigan and I both know that means that the bank is, at least, reducing its risk, or it thinks it may lose in the courts. Another person may go to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman the following day with a mirror image of that case and the Ombudsman has no idea what is happening. The banks are not offering the same settlement to the other cohort of customers. Does Mr. Justice Hedigan have any concern about that type of culture which is as much about the bank reducing its liability as it is about what the banks tell us they are about and doing the right thing on behalf of their customers?