Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Reading the tracker mortgage examination update report this morning, one can only be convinced that, despite all the apologies from the CEOs for what they have done to their own customers in wrongfully taking their money from them, overcharging them and denying tracker rates to them, behind the scenes they have continued to fight the Central Bank tooth and nail. In the past 12 weeks, despite the fact that all the final figures were supposed to be in last year, we now find that the Central Bank has identified 3,400 more tracker mortgage victims. It is very clear that the culture within the banks is not changing and will not change, and we need to recognise that. It is therefore time to introduce serious legislation that will hold individual bankers to account. We have produced some of that legislation. There are two pieces before the committee, that is, class action legislation and another piece which would allow for the jailing of bankers who lie to the Central Bank. My questions to the Taoiseach are if he will allow the money messages to these pieces of legislation so they can proceed, and if he will bring in his own legislation that will see real white-collar crime dealt with in our financial institutions and hold individual bankers to account in respect of their actions.

See this speech in context