Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Míle buíochas leis na finnéithe as teacht anseo agus as a gcur i láthair. Debt is probably one of the toughest things that a person can ever deal with. It is a disaster. It can lead people into depression and worse. It can radically alter a person's family circumstances and how their family lives. I have dealt with around 400 families in debt distress over the years and have tried to help them to seek resolutions with the banks over that period of time. The level of forensic investigation of their incomes and expenditures is high. The financial statements that people have to go through and the cuts they have to make, including cutting back on health insurance and different elements of their lives, are very significant. It is very seldom that any write-down is considered. There is usually a pause, a reduction for a period, an extension of the loan, perhaps a parking of the loan if the borrower is very lucky or a mortgage-to-rent deal. That is typically what most people will have experienced. When they see volumes of money of this size being written down, we can imagine, given their experiences, the anger and frustration that can create, first and foremost.

For us, fairness and prudence are key. It is necessary that banks, especially banks that have been injected with significant amounts of public funding and in which the State has a shareholding, are operating in a fair and prudent fashion. There is nearly more of a responsibility for those types of banks to fulfil those two objectives than others. The purpose of this conversation is to try to ascertain whether AIB's practices are fair and prudent. We will need information to be able to make that judgment if we can.

Deputy Doherty mentioned the 1,900 write-downs. That amounts to 1% of financially struggling customers. By definition, they are outliers in relation to the experience of people receiving resolutions of some sort with the banks. The amounts of money are equivalent to lotto wins in many ways. They are massive chunks of money. It is important for us to be able to understand the total value of those 1,900 write-downs. I know the witnesses have refused to tell us the average, but I am asking about the total amount. It could be that €2 billion was written down in that 1% cohort. If that is the case, it raises a serious question in relation to the prudence of that particular bank. Can the witnesses give us the total amount of the 1,900 write-downs?