Mr. Padraic Kissane:

No. The length of time it is taking creates questions for me. It is an easy argument. One is either entitled or not entitled to a tracker mortgage and one's margin is defined. The investigation in a collective is an easy argument. However, I am concerned the reason it has taken so much time is because the banks are creating lines of defence rather than resolutions. I have seen it in some of the resistance I am meeting with cases which have come back. Some of them are incorrect. I do not know why it is taking the time it is.

The Central Bank told each bank that as soon as it identified a customer affected, it was to put the customer back on the correct rate. I said a long time ago all affected customers should all be put back on the correct rates and we can sort all the other stuff out afterwards. The banks must stop the overcharging. I put it to the Central Bank that it had to stop the offender offending. That is the critical aspect. The minute that would be done, at least the overcharging would stop.

When people get the cheques, three emotions arise. The first is delight because some of these people did not know it was happening. The second emotion happens within the minute, namely, anger. The third emotion is the what if. As I have said on a broader scale, the opportunity to deleverage this economy has passed us by with a low interest rate environment by the banks overcharging. It has to spread across the standard variable rate issue.

By the way, I do not buy the lack of being able to repossess houses. Every one of the banks has boasted about their profit levels, to a degree, to this committee. Lazarus could not have recovered as quick. There is only one person creating profits, the customer. One factors in the perfect storm. How many rejected direct debits happened in this country? That is €10 a go. There might have been €300 in the account but the €10 was charged when the direct debit was bounced. The retrieval of current accounts by banks is presented to committees like this as new lending. When a bank takes away a current account from somebody, it takes away not just the current account but the confidence to transact business. The banks have done this across the board and I am now moving to broader banking issues.

The elephant in the room is commercial mortgages. If the banks attack the most vulnerable of families, I dread to think what went on on the commercial side. I already have had a contact from London about an Irish international bank. It told a commercial customer to give up its tracker mortgage or it would lose its credit facilities. There are 15 cases of this with the lowest loan size at €8 million. Where does it end? I do not know. We could go back to the sanctity of what is the family and get it right. What the banks are doing is an utter disgrace.