Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Michael McGrath on his work to date and on tabling this motion calling on the banks to identify fully all customers affected by this scandal, restore all affected customers to their tracker rates instantly and pay redress to all victims without further delay. Unfortunately, the lingering sense is that we are not getting the full story. To see the banks putting their own interests ahead of the 23 families that have been made homeless and the 79 buy-to-let properties that have been lost is outrageous. They are putting themselves ahead of the financial and mental strain that families and others have endured. This is an outrageous scandal. The State was to the fore with the banks and implemented the bank guarantee to save them, yet this is their answer. They are financially penalising ordinary people.

I have a tracker mortgage. I do not know whether I am on the wrong rate. Like many thousands of others around the country tonight, I am wondering whether I have been wronged for the past 22 years. Unfortunately, the ordinary people who are getting up early in the morning, going to work and trying to pay their mortgages are being financially abused.

It is an absolute scandal. This evening, the Minister told us that the banks had admitted to overcharging 14,600 account holders. Nevertheless, the banks have had to be challenged every step of the way to get to this stage. We need and demand a solid explanation as to why 11 institutions acted in precisely the same manner, which beggars belief. It is in no way acceptable that we are here almost two years on with few of those affected having got their own money back. All 14,600 of the account holders we know about require redress and compensation, but only 3,300 have received it to date. The effect of the scandal on mortgage holders lives in incalculable. In many cases, no amount of compensation will be adequate to address the suffering caused to these people, many of whom lost their homes.

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