Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It has been lifted by the Bank of Ireland. Okay.

There is a considerable mismatch in the banks compared with other European banks in respect of deposit and borrowing interest rates. The issue directly affects the public. People who may be saving for a mortgage have money on deposit. They are trying to get the deposit together but are getting only a 0.1% or 0.01% interest rate on the few bob they are trying to save for a deposit. On the other hand, when they take out a mortgage, they could be paying in excess of 4% in interest rates. What kind of pressure can the Department put on the Central Bank to control that? As I mentioned earlier, many people would have been surprised by the answer Gabriel Makhlouf gave us. In our innocence, we would think the Department of Finance and the Central Bank, with the power of the State behind them, would have some influence when trying to address these types of mismatches. I understand the banks are commercial entities that are there to make money. They have operational costs and shareholders. I understand all of that. However, we have to admit that compared with other European banks and the banking system across Europe, it appears we have a very wide gap between deposit and borrowing interest rates. What can we do? Can the Department bring to bear any power or influence to narrow the gap between deposit and borrowing interest rates?