Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I did not get the chance to mention EBS, which I think was in complete dereliction of its duty not to inform the witnesses and other customers that they were in default of their mortgage and, therefore, their mortgage could be called in. It is very clear in the terms and conditions that “if a building or structure of the mortgaged property is demolished or damaged so as to materially affect the value of the security created by the mortgage or these conditions, or the mortgagor surrenders his or her interest in the mortgaged property”, and so on. That is very serious and, in my view, there should be a role for the Central Bank in terms of consumer protection because it has not happened. The banks would be only too happy to get rid of that clause but the clause is there and it is between both parties. It pulls the banks into this because they cannot just pretend this is not happening and they have to ensure that their asset is restored to the proper value, and that it is actually restored. I would not get a mortgage today if the engineer was saying I could not build on the foundations of my house. There is no way a bank would give me a mortgage to build on those foundations. That is where the banks come into this.

On another issue, I note the Redress Focus Group had a meeting with the Minister for Finance and he has made very positive comments in response to me on the floor of the Dáil.

Mr. Sharkey's loan was sold to a vulture fund. Many others have been sold, although perhaps not to vulture funds. For example, some have been sold by Ulster Bank to main street lenders. I have asked the committee to put a question to all of the banks, as I believe something is happening, or has at least happened, in a selective way. I am referring to an examination of the asset values of properties or collateral that were held by certain banks before they were sold on to others and how the people who hold the homeowners' loans today received write-downs because they were affected by mica. It is important that this situation be clarified. Permanent TSB or a vulture fund may have bought an Ulster Bank loan portfolio and received a write-down because some of the properties may have had mica, given the concentration of Ulster Bank loans in Donegal. Have the witnesses had discussions with the banks about whether they sold or bought loan portfolios that had reduced values as a result of potential defective blocks?