Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will put the point more bluntly. The Central Bank was asleep at the wheel regarding the earlier period of this investigation. Customers who took cases to the then Financial Services Ombudsman, including extended family members of mine, had to wait four years as Permanent TSB dragged a test case through the ombudsman service, the High Court and then the Supreme Court and for campaigners, including this committee, to write to the Central Bank instructing it to take action on behalf of the customers that are affected. We know today that 40,500 of those customers are affected. The Central Bank did nothing during that period to protect those customers. It investigated the banks individually and then closed those investigations knowing that there were 33,000 additional customers affected. It was left to those individuals to argue and fight their cases without the support of the Central Bank. That is the reality of the situation. This may have happened before Ms Rowland was employed in the Central Bank but that is the reality. That is the stain on the Central Bank in regard to the tracker mortgage investigation. This is without doubt the banks' responsibility because they were the culprits. Where was the role of the Central Bank in protecting consumers? Where was its role between 2012 and 2015 when the investigation was launched and customers were left on their own? I was in the room with some of these people as they were on the phone to the banks. The banks were telling them that they were not entitled to a tracker mortgage and the people were in tears. I sat at the kitchen tables of many of these individuals. I know many of them. These people fought the system and did not get the support of all the State agencies but they were unwilling to be silenced and, as a result of going all the way to the Supreme Court, forced the State agencies into this investigation, which uncovered the greatest theft in the history of this State.

Ms Rowland may dispute everything I said but perhaps she will tell me if the Central Bank has learned any lessons regarding its approach to this investigation given what is now known in terms of the magnitude of what was going on under its nose in respect of 11 banks in this State, which robbed their customers of their own money.