Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I want to again recognise the points made by all speakers. Mr. Butler made a number of references to the Central Bank of Ireland. It is a view I have held many times, both in court and out of court. I am not a lawyer, so I do not have any authority to go into court, other than as an advocate. This is not so easy to do anymore but it was possible in the early stages of the crisis. There is a citation that goes with loans, that they are governed by the Central Bank of Ireland. To my mind, that gives the customers the belief that they are okay and are covered, that the Central Bank of Ireland is looking after them and nothing will go wrong. That was not the case. Did the Central Bank of Ireland look the other way? Whatever happened at the time, I do not know. The fact is that it had disastrous consequences for the ordinary householder or the borrower. That is but one side. The other side is that a number of banks left the country. They came here, raided, and walked off, having undermined the banking system in the country.

Some banks, but certainly not all of them, were, in fact, anxious to talk and to try to work it out. Some of them indicated this. In all of the cases that I have dealt with - and I am sure it is the same for everybody else and Oireachtas Members in general - there were some very combative meetings. The situation developed whereby families were in tears, losing their house, and listening to the harsh words dished out to them by the bank in question. The bank gave them no sign of any kind of willingness to accommodate them at all, other than to ruthlessly enforce the law, insofar as it saw it, for itself. The Central Bank of Ireland needs to be awake to this kind of activity now and in the future, or whenever it may occur. If it has happened once, it can always happen again.

Mr. Butler referred to the Companies Act 2014, and I entirely agree. It was obvious they were not fulfilling their obligations under company law and they did not care. There were no consequences for them and there are still not any consequences for them. Most of those people disappeared from the customers' view. I could go on and on, Chair.

The point is that we need to have regard to the points made by our witnesses this morning. We need to take them into account. We need to try to ensure that as a result of what has happened that, first, perhaps something can be worked out at this stage for their benefit and, second, there should be no repetition of this kind of nonsense and the way some people were treated.