Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I will raise the issue of tracker mortgages. Ms Howard made an interesting comment on the restructuring of non-performing loans, NPLs, namely, that there has been a reduction of 25%. Is that in line with previous quarters or years? Has the focus on Ulster Bank withdrawing from the market allowed it to cut better deals or different structures in respect of those loans? Are there lessons for other financial institutions, since Ulster Bank will be out of the country soon?

I do not want to go over old ground regarding what Ulster Bank did in respect of 6,000 tracker mortgage customers. However, it sold a large number of family loans to vulture funds in the past. I want to know whether it sold any that were subject to the tracker mortgage examination. It sold 2,300 to Cerberus in 2018. We are now being contacted by people saying they were part of the tracker mortgage examination and were deemed an NPL because Ulster Bank was wrongly taking their money from them. They will now end up paying a 7% interest rate from tomorrow. They will pay 7.5% when the ECB puts up its interest rate at its meeting and, four weeks later, they will pay 8%. They are utterly screwed as a result of the decision of Ulster Bank to sell on to vulture funds, which is something that should never ever have happened. KBC is in the same boat where €1.1 billion in loans was sold to Caravel. Did Ulster Bank sell any NPLs that were tracker mortgages subject to the examination, that is, people holding them had received compensation or a positive decision from the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman?