Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have one fine question on the tracker matter. The Central Bank has no interest and it told us this for years. I brought forward legislation on capping interest rates. Deputy McGrath, when he was here, brought forward legislation as well, which progressed further, until it was dropped. It has no interest in restricting interest rates that can be applied by financial institutions. I would argue that if Pepper came around tomorrow and said it is putting up the interest rates to 15%, the Central Bank would still say the same. That is the problem. It believes it should not meddle in the market and so on and so forth. I tabled other legislation that was stopped, which was the No Consent, No Sale Bill, which was a regulation of the Central Bank stating that loans should not be sold without the borrower’s consent. In fairness, some in the Central Bank privately said to me that should be the case for private homes. Your home debt should not be in the hands of somebody who only has a short-term financial interest. It is too important to you and your family.

The issue here is if the vultures cannot be forced to reduce their rates and the Central Bank will not intervene and it is independent, then what can be done? The witness touched on this in terms of the contract. They are supposed to be setting the interest rates the way that the originator set them. There is much space to interpret that. Is that something that could be explored?