Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raised the issue last week about the overcharging of certain tracker mortgage customers by way of a Topical Issue debate with the Minister’s colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan. As the Minister knows, a scandal has emerged with Permanent TSB and 1,400 of its customers wrongly denied a tracker rate, having come off a fixed-rate mortgage, for example, or not properly informed of their right to a tracker rate. Of course, a tracker mortgage rate in the current interest rate environment is very lucrative and essential to the customer who is entitled to it.

I believe, however, a much wider review across the banking system is needed because evidence is emerging that other banks have employed similar tactics against customers. I am not satisfied with the Central Bank’s response to date. The Minister should intervene and make his views known that there needs to be a system-wide review of how customers entitled to tracker mortgages were denied them and how other customers were coaxed from their tracker products by certain methods used by the banks.

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