Mr. Padraic Kissane:

It is truly shocking. I have with me a folder of amazing facts from my investigation. Some are astonishing. No bank in Ireland has ever advised any customer in respect of his or her mortgage. Every day banks tell me that they did not advise a single customer and that the customers made their own decisions. A reason for this is that, if they did advise, they would then have a fiduciary duty of care. By Irish law, banks have no fiduciary duty of care to their customers. It is astonishing. However, I was in a queue in a bank a number of months ago and I saw an advert: "Looking for some financial advice? Book an appointment with us." The same bank is writing to me saying that it gives no advice on mortgages.

Some of the documentation involved in a fixed rate mortgage was described in a Financial Services Ombudsman's decision as misleading, vague, imprecise and confusing. The bank never challenged that in court. I referred to KBC's fixed rate applications. Similar to AIB, KBC'S application may have been out of date and was not updated to account for the tracker aspect of the loan. It was KBC's get-out-of-jail-free card per se. Tricks are being played with loans that should have been clear.

Requests for interest-only extensions are a regular occurrence. Given the economic environment, people lost their jobs and overtime and bonuses and many issues arose. They approached their banks for interest-only extensions. This was another opportunity that the banks used to remove people's tracker rates. PTSB offered a 10% bonus if people paid off their trackers early. Bank of Ireland conducted market research into people’s worries about increasing rates and presented it as an opportunity to fix their mortgages at the low rates of the time.

There was an issue with the Central Bank, which brings me back to certain concerns. Investors with 20-year loans had those loans underwritten and granted on the basis of there being interest-only periods of ten years. When their interest-only terms expired, it was used as a reason to lose a tracker because the investors had changed the conditions of the loan even though the loans had been underwritten as interest only at the time. The banks assumed that the values of the properties would increase. Mr. Justice Hogan stated in one of his decisions that how the banks had played tricks with the documentation would have been a unique argument from his lecture students.

I witnessed a lady crying in the Court of Appeal one day. My heart went out to her. She had won her case in the High Court but the bank challenged it to the Court of Appeal. The decision was set aside. When I saw her leaving the court, I wondered what would happen to her now. I do not know what happened with the costs. I did not even ask.

I referred to the stress testing effects. A 12 year old wrote to me on behalf of his mom and dad. It was astonishing, but his letter should be read. It is not that any of this is untrue. He is an astonishing young man who gave a statement. His name is Kyle, and he wrote at the bottom of his two-page note how he could not understand why, because the bank made a big mistake, his parents should have anything to do with it, that the bank had ruined his and his sister’s childhoods and that it was not fair. This is truly appalling.

Banks can line up their legal experts, but they have no moral defence. I will challenge any of them. There are good people in these banks, but many are being told to shut up and not to reply in a certain way. In one reply that I received from a bank, I saw documentation where I know that information was withdrawn. Whatever people do, they are not to respond to my commentary on anything relating to tracker mortgages. They must respond to what the customer said and should not include me. The issue goes to the appeals panel, which is then meant to try to assess the matter. This is astonishing. Were the committee to ask me to guess as to whether any of this would come out in the investigation, I would say that I am pretty certain that it will not, but it could come out in a court case because that is-----