Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not asking the Minister of State to interfere in the day-to-day operations of the banks; rather, I am asking him to operate the taxpayer's 15% shareholding. Reducing the cost base by 6% to 10% normally affects ordinary working people in the banking sector. I ask the Minister of State to raise tomorrow the issue of senior executives on outrageous salaries, not ordinary everyday workers. I have grave concerns about some of the directors being re-elected to the board of the bank.

As a shareholder, I ask the Minister to watch how the banks are returning to their old ways. A tracker mortgage of €250,000 over the period could be worth up to €100,000 to the mortgage holder. The findings of market research will be used to inform and develop attractive products to encourage tracker mortgage holders to move off the product and ultimately improve the overall profitability of Bank of Ireland's mortgage book. That will be to the detriment of ordinary tracker mortgage holders. We need to exercise our 15% stakeholding and I ask the Minister of State to do so.

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