Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that. I thank Mr. Lawlor again for putting his information and personal story on the record. This is a scandal. These things start with one person. A comment was made earlier about how whistle-blowers are sometimes perceived as contrarians, cranks or such. If somebody said a number of years ago that every single bank that had sold a tracker mortgage in the country had ripped off their customers to the tune of nearly €1 billion, with 40,000 people involved and more than 100 family homes repossessed, and that this was done despite customers and the Financial Services Ombudsman repeatedly challenging the banks, you would say that that is very hard to swallow. That is exactly what unfolded with the tracker mortgage scandal. It takes just one individual and we need to sit up and listen to those concerns.

I hear what Mr. Lawlor is saying. It is appalling that it appears that the bank has deliberately withheld key information about a court proceeding that had a serious impact on Mr. Lawlor's family and led to repossession. That is not acceptable. We need to follow it up as a committee. Whatever about the legal process now, the Central Bank is responsible for ensuring that banks behave ethically, appropriately and within the law with regard to the licences that it provides. I will not go into the finer detail other than to ask that for us, as a committee, to follow up on this, would Mr. Lawlor be willing to share some of that documentation with the committee? For example, might he share the information that he received from the GDPR request and the terms of the contract that would allow us to quiz both the Central Bank and institution about this case?