Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their frankness up to now. There are, however, many people still badly affected. As well as examining the past, I would like some indication as to what will happen to those still embroiled.

I raised with the Central Bank on a number of occasions the circumstances of the Bank of Ireland staff tracker group. In late 2006 and early 2007, Bank of Ireland offered a two-year, fixed-rate mortgage product to staff in the bank. It was at the ECB rate at the time plus 0.75%. The individuals were promised that they could transfer to a tracker mortgage when the term of the fixed rate ended, after two years. Some 2,000 Bank of Ireland staff were affected by this. Over time, 1,800 were transferred by Bank of Ireland to a tracker mortgage, but for some unknown reason, 200 were not able to transfer. These were staff at various levels, from management level to administrative and branch levels. There is a dossier on how some of the individuals and their families have been affected. In some cases, their health has been broken and their careers have been badly damaged. They have written to the Central Bank. They wrote to the previous Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Philip Lane, and set out the details. They, as bankers, set out all the reasons, including the technical reasons, they should be transferred to the appropriate tracker mortgage at the appropriate rate. They have literally been going around in circles ever since with no redress at all.

The group of 200 seems entirely arbitrary. They might just have been at the end of the list, or else there was some time-based feature. I can see no reason 1,800 staff had their arrangements settled by Bank of Ireland and 200 were left out in the cold. The latter have not received any kind of adequate response from the Central Bank. I do not know whether the delegates feel they are walking on eggshells because of Bank of Ireland and that it is not within the Central Bank's capacity to act, offering clarity and an explanation as to why the 200 have been left aside. They continue to seek to be transferred to a tracker mortgage. They have suffered all the outcomes that individuals have indicated in previous testimonies to the banks themselves and to the Central Bank. Marriages have broken down, careers have been affected, and a number of individuals have suffered bad health. While much of the focus is understandably on Permanent TSB and while I, too, can tell harrowing stories about that bank, I do not understand why the members of the group in Bank of Ireland have been left out.

Having gone through all of their documentation with them again recently, I am convinced they have a strong case as to be offered redress.

In her opening statement, Ms Rowland outlined a good policy - Stop the Harm - with regard to expectations on behaviour and culture. I very much welcome this. It is a major advance by the Central Bank and I congratulate the people who formulated it. It is based on approaches that have existed in other jurisdictions with which I am familiar. Many of the people in the group in Bank of Ireland have been destroyed by the failure to obtain redress. They are going from one group of people to another, including the bank itself and its mortgage support team, which sounds like a slightly ironic title. These people continue to pay their mortgages but many of them are now embroiled in heavy mortgage debt. Given the principles enunciated in Stop the Harm, can the Central Bank offer any hope to this group that the issue can be redressed? How have 1,800 people been sorted out while 200 people, for whom there is no evidence of any particular distinction, have been left to struggle and endure the type of suffering with which the Central Bank eloquently empathised in Ms Rowland's opening statement? I would like them to get the same treatment.