Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

How did KBC Ireland decide to withdraw the benefits of the tracker mortgages? My colleague, Deputy Doherty, already referred to this. Permission surely had to be got from some quarter or central authority, whether it was the Central Bank of Ireland or the ECB, at which Ireland is also represented. The propaganda claim around that time was that the retail banks were losing as a result of the tracker mortgages. They were not losing, because they borrowed the money on the international market at a very low rate and had an entitlement to maintain those mortgages throughout the European Union, not to decide to on a country-by-country basis or based on where there was least resistance. KBC did not have the authority to withdraw that facility from the people, many of whom were penalised, to which my colleague referred at length. I am trying to figure out from where the inspiration came to apply that new rule. It was a new rule that cost many people their homes and was seriously at variance with the Single Market that applies throughout Europe. The Single Market applies to everybody, not just selectively to some people.