Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

They are not here. They have gone into hiding. They have run away and abandoned the people who have been devastated by the banks in this tracker mortgage scandal. Obviously, the Taoiseach has put it up to them and they have backed down. Shame on the Independent Alliance. Shame on the Minister, Deputy Ross, and the Ministers of State, Deputies Halligan and Finian McGrath.

During Leaders' Questions on 5 April, I told the Taoiseach of the day, Deputy Enda Kenny, that the tracker mortgage fraud needed to be investigated criminally and that he should send in the Garda fraud squad. I did not have a whistleblower. I just had a healthy suspicion of senior bankers, backed up by the experience of 30 years of banking scandals and rip-offs like the DIRT scandal, the Ansbacher accounts, bogus non-resident accounts and the destruction of this country by the banks during the boom-bust period. Like every other Irish citizen now knows, I knew that the banks and senior bankers had no moral compass.

This tracker mortgage fraud is a major scandal that requires criminal investigation. In April, I asked the then Taoiseach to make a formal complaint to the Garda and to call in the fraud squad. I told him that any delay in ordering that investigation could lead to the destruction or alteration of relevant records with a view to senior bankers blaming subordinate and junior staff. Shamefully, he refused to call in the Garda or protect the tracker mortgage holders. In fact, he was protecting the banks.

Six months later, we now see the extent of the massive fraud - 20,000 mortgage holders, 15 banks and €1 billion. It is clear that this scandal involves collusion by the banks in a systematic and widespread fraud. It is a scandal that has to be addressed by a criminal investigation by the Garda. Until and unless senior bankers are made subject to normal criminal fraud law, we will have victims like the tracker mortgage holders time and again.

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