John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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To follow on from Deputy Burke's point and Ms Rowland's reply about the bank dealing with a query at first hand, the context she outlined is not happening in many cases. That is where lies the difficulty. As a result, we have received volumes of correspondence from clients of banks that have been badly affected. I will deal with some of their cases. For example, clients may have written to their banks about their pre-March 2006 tracker mortgage and have gone through the process with the bank only to find that it does not respond or pushes them from pillar to post, often forcing them to get legal advice and legal services at a huge cost. Instead of dealing with the problem, the bank pushes it out and tests the customer in how far he or she is prepared to go in pursuing the problem.

I understand we cannot name individuals, but in one case a client wrote to us anxious that this matter be raised with the witnesses. I refer to the position before 2006, what they bought out of the promotion of the product itself and then the discovery that when they sought redress, the bank simply pushed them around. From 2010 to date, they have not received any approach from the bank that they consider to be constructive or helpful. In fact, they have fought all the way and are now at the end of their tether. This kind of issue falls generally within the area of tracker mortgages but also brings in other matters the bank has ignored. How does the Central Bank enforce this? As Ms Rowland said, it has an obligation to deal with this type of custom before it goes anywhere else and without putting the customer into bad health and arrears because of the associated cost.