Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I concur with what the Chair has said on this. Although the role of the Central Bank in the tracker mortgage scandal concluded a while ago we know the scandal is not over. The committee, working collectively with all its members, has done a good bit of work on trying to shed a light on this and pushing those organs of the State that also failed customers in this regard. When people turned to the Financial Services Ombudsman at the early stages all the cases were rejected. We have to remember this. The Central Bank's comment, even today, is that it cannot get involved in individual issues. It was only through the perseverance of individuals that the issue was pursued and the Financial Services Ombudsman found in favour of them. It was fought all the way through.

I have not had an opportunity to raise this issue with the Minister. We are shocked and appalled at what went on in the banking sector. We are shocked and genuinely feel for people who are victims of the tracker mortgage scandals, particularly those who lost their houses. Many lost more than money. They were severely impacted in terms of their mental health. Permanent TSB, a bank of which the Minister is a major shareholder, recently fought a case brought to the Ombudsman. I know the individual who took the case. The individual relayed to me very clearly that the bank fought him tooth and nail. He won his case. Permanent TSB has confirmed to me in recent weeks that up to 200 individuals will have to be dealt with in the same way. I do not think that will be the end of the story.

The banks have set up a culture board and all the rest. When we have banks still fighting consumers in 2022, years after the investigation and examination by the Central Bank concluded, I argue strongly it is not a customer-centric approach. We cannot have a David versus Goliath approach. That is not fair. The case I am speaking about took years. I am sure the Minister is well aware of the avalanche of paperwork involved. Permanent TSB has a legal team. The individual had to deal with all of the correspondence and respond to it. If, at any time, had he buckled and said it was not worth it or not enough, up to 200 individuals would not know they were also victims of the tracker mortgage scandal.

In the middle of all that, the Central Bank did not spot this or step in. Therefore, we must improve consumer protection. There is a real need to look at where consumer protection lies. We must examine the legislation to allow the Central Bank to step into the shoes of victims, whether those of businesses in respect of the insurance they had for Covid-19 or of individuals impacted in respect of issues such as the tracker mortgage examinations. We have not given the Central Bank the powers to do that. As we are coming out the other side of this, I am mindful that there are, as I believe, still hundreds, if not thousands of cases, to be processed. Some of those may end up in the courts. In that context, we must state that the fines are not the end of this matter. The Garda will undertake its piece. Information in this regard has been provided to the force and it will be up to the Garda to deal with that aspect.

As politicians, we must examine this 15-year period where regulations were continually breached. How do we now improve the situation to ensure it never happens again? If representatives of the banking sector come knocking on the Minister’s door, which they are likely to do because there is a campaign by the sector to get him to allow the banks to pay bonuses and to breach the €500,000 pay limit, he should tell them to sling their hook. AIB was breaching regulations until eight weeks ago. It is amazing that this was happening.

The committee has heard from all the CEOs. They have apologised. They have told us they are now customer-centric and all the rest of it. Then we see the facts. This type of practice was going on until eight weeks ago in AIB. Equally, Permanent TSB is fighting these customers. We never see these aspects. If this individual had not come to me, I would not have known what was happening. This is not the approach we want in the banking sector. We must reach a point in the banking sector in this State where we are able to draw a line under what happened. We will only be able to draw such a line, however, when we have dealt with all these issues and they are behind us. We need to reach the point where our banking sector is doing what it should be doing, which is lending to individuals and making a return for shareholders, while also meeting the needs of ordinary people, businesses and the economy. This situation has dogged the banking sector for so long, but it is its fault. The banks are continuing to breach the regulations and continuing to act in the way they have. I fear this committee will be dealing with these issues for quite a while to come.

That was a longer contribution than I expected to make, but this situation has not been dealt with. The change we needed in the sector has not happened. If that change has not happened after 41,000 people had money taken from their accounts, family homes were taken and hundreds of millions of euro had to be forced to be paid back, as well as compensation to these victims, then I do not know what it is going to take. The Minister has a role here as the shareholder in some of these banks.