John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I cannot believe you are saying that. Documents are meant to be retained, particularly by a big bank like that. My understanding is that it claimed there was no documentation for a vast number of these cases, particularly a document that would refer to the compatibility of this particular product for the individual it was dealing with, yet the whistleblower had all the documents. I just think it is unbelievable. It raises the question, therefore, as to how much information the Central Bank is given or how much information it can beat out of these banks using the muscle that it has when it goes into them.

We get the line that there are no documents, but we are going to settle everything anyway. It shows that the employees of the bank are put into a position whereby they have to tick boxes qualifying these investors, but they knew damn well that they were not informing the investors. When we investigated, lo and behold the documents were not available. They settled a lot of those cases, as I understand it, and there are still cases outstanding. If the banks had changed their culture and approach, one would imagine that regarding Belfry and the EBS tied agent issue, things would be upfront. If they had any figure in the Central Bank, they would be upfront and show the bank what was happening.