Ms Derville Rowland:

I thank the Deputy for her question. I share her concern and sympathy for people experiencing hard times because of the economic situation in which we found ourselves and, of course, because of the behaviour of the banks in making life far harder for some than it should have been. I am aware of this case and I am also aware of the other issues the Deputy's colleagues have raised with us. We put 2 million accounts into scope for tracker mortgage examination scrutiny and a huge number of cases had to be looked at. Because we had information from a variety of sources, to give us a good indicator of where the issues might be, we made sure to challenge hard where we thought there was a basis to do so. We pushed to the limit of what we could. We did push against the lenders' view that those affected were a far more narrow group. The Deputy will recall the time we came here when the lenders had accepted approximately 13,000 customers for inclusion. That number has swelled since then, which tells us just how wrong it was.

As we went through the basis upon which our decisions were made, and we took the most pro-customer point of view, we got lots of cases included in the tracker mortgage examination. For example, we looked at the terms and conditions set out in the mortgage. If people were entitled to a tracker on the face of it, that is precisely what they got. I totally recognise that some customers are disappointed with the rate of the tracker they got but we pushed it as far as we could. We also required lenders to look at the customer journey. This means it is not just about the contract. It was about any information provided to them in the sales process, any advertisement on television being run at the time and any other documentation that might have given people an expectation of a tracker. Where we could see a basis where that transpired to be the case, we pushed for people to be included. We certainly saw many customers get tracker mortgages on that basis. Customers might have started on a tracker and moved to a fixed rate because the price was better and it was not clear when they moved off a fixed rate. Some of them moved two or three times and it was the original documentation that had tracker promises in it and not the documentation for the second or third moves. Some of those customers also got trackers. We also looked at the disclosure regimes and whether they made it clear enough to customers over time and they also yielded cases.

I am sorry that some customers have been disappointed where we could not find a basis to force the lenders. This is one of those groups where we could not find a basis for us to force the lenders to include them. We understand the disappointment of people and their families. It is important to us if information does come to light from another source. We have been clear about the feedback loop and that it is important to work together in the national framework. A total of 2 million accounts were scrutinised. While many people who would wish to have a tracker rate did not get one, many have been included. Where we could have a basis to include customers on tracker rates, we pushed for them. Other fora have different criteria to us. For example, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman has a much wider filter than the Central Bank. The statutory framework within which he can operate has a very wide discretionary basis. I am sure he can speak to the committee himself about that basis. We did the most we could yet I am absolutely sorry for people and families who have suffered and I understand it very well. We did the most we could. My colleague, Ms McEvoy, might want to say something.