Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 July 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Defective Block Redress: Redress Focus Group for Banking and Insurance

Mr. Patrick Sharkey:

We received an emailed commitment from the Central Bank to meet us in its consumer protection capacity. That was a fair number of weeks ago, though. We have been following up and asking. We are homeowners who have worthless homes. Many of them are literally falling down. We cannot think of many more issues that could be more serious in terms of the Central Bank's consumer protection mandate. Couple that with how, factually speaking, there are thousands of mortgages that are repayable on demand in this country, and the Central Bank not only has a role in customer protection, but also in the financial reporting by banks. That thousands of mortgages are effectively unsecured is a major issue. I cannot understand why we are here up to two months later and the meeting with our group has not yet taken place.