Dáil debates

Thursday, 8 February 2018

12:10 pm

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It has been made perfectly clear in the last number of months that the Government is taking this very seriously. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, has spoken about it over and over again and, indeed, has answered questions from Deputy Doherty on these issues. The Central Bank published its latest update on the tracker mortgage examination in late December. This indicated that in or around 33,700 customers were affected by tracker mortgage failings, which was a total scandal. This includes 7,100 cases involving tracker mortgage issues, which were remediated outside the industry-wide examination. So far, just over €316 million has been paid in redress and compensation to borrowers identified as impacted from the industry-wide examination. The Central Bank also confirmed that the five main mortgage lenders were on course to meet their October 2017 commitments and that known issues around disputed groups in respect of lenders have been resolved to the satisfaction of the Central Bank.

The Central Bank has advised that it is currently pursuing four enforcement investigations and it has stated that it expects all of the main mortgage lenders will face enforcement investigations, which I think is what the Deputy is looking for. Permanent TSB and KBC recently appeared before the Oireachtas finance committee. Permanent TSB indicated that a total of 1,979 customers had been affected and it was also indicated that nearly 2,500 KBC customers remain on the wrong rate. The Government continues to support the Central Bank in its efforts to complete the tracker examination as quickly as possible and it looks forward to receiving a further update from the Central Bank in due course, towards the end of March. The Minister for Finance has made it clear that if we have to introduce new legislation in this area then we will do that, but that will be based on the Central Bank's report and recommendations on how we should take this forward from a legislative point of view.

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