Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will appreciate, I cannot speak on behalf of the Central Bank. It is independent. It is very important, given the office I hold, that I respect that. The Central Bank said to me in the briefings I have been given that it wants to give the two lenders concerned a little more time to get their act together. It is indicating that it is expecting a reply from the two lenders by the end of October, which is only a few weeks away. I expect, or suspect, that if the Central Bank remains dissatisfied after that, we will know the names of the two financial institutions.

I absolutely agree with Deputy Howlin that we need a clear timeline for compensation and redress. As the Deputy knows, 98% of people are already back on the interest rate they should have been on in the first place, but really only between one quarter and one third of people have been compensated. The Central Bank is expecting redress and insisting that it be under way in all cases by the end of the year. There may be difficulties in individual cases, as is often the case, but we certainly expect to see the vast majority of people receiving redress before the end of the year.

It is important to point out the law has been changed in this regard. It was changed under the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013. That is legislation that was brought in under the previous Government, the Fine Gael-Labour Government. Unfortunately, most of the activity in question took place prior to the introduction of that legislation, and legislation is not retrospective in Ireland. To a certain extent, the people here are very much victims of the light-tough regulation that existed prior to 2013.

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