Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have been engaging with the Central Statistics Office, CSO, looking at the impact of inflation on different household categories. The CSO will shortly prepare a note that will build on the work the Central Bank has done. That was quite helpful, but in the future we will have information on those different categories. We had social welfare increases of 2.5% in the most recent budget. Inflation is running at double that and will increase further before the end of the year. Real inflation for people on social welfare is probably 1% higher than for those on the highest incomes in the State. It is a technical debate but a very important one because policies flow from it.

I will move on to the issue of tracker mortgages. In July 2019, the Central Bank issued its final report on the matter. There are still people going through the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman and finding that their cases are upheld. I had a call this week with an individual whom I dealt with five years ago. This committee has heard these points. The current Chairperson was Chair of the committee then too. The Central Bank came before us and said it had done its scrutiny and was leaving it at that. We have had Padraic Kissane before us talking about people who were on discounted tracker rates and saying there is an issue there. We have had the individuals affected themselves before the committee. The individual with whom I had a call has had his mortgage sold on, and the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman has upheld the decision. It is likely there are hundreds of others, if not more, who fall into that cohort, and they are not the only cohort. We always talk about the 6,000 AIB customers whose cases were not captured by the Central Bank but were captured by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. There are other individual cases.

The Central Bank has an agreement with the banks that when the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, FSPO, makes a ruling, the entire cohort affected will be looked at and the benefits of the ruling will flow to them. I have two questions for the witnesses in that regard. Has the Central Bank done any work on cases of discounted tracker mortgages, and does it need to take a second look at this? It has missed cases that have resulted in serious financial hardship for individuals. In some cases they are still losing their homes or their mortgages are being sold to vulture funds. While the Central Bank washed its hands of this back in 2019, these individuals were left to paddle their own canoes and to take their cases to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. I would like a response to that.