Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government commits to working with the banking industry to support customers during and after the Covid crisis. The Taoiseach will be well aware that the banks are charging a Covid penalty where mortgage holders who avail of this break will have to pay thousands of euro more. He will also probably be aware that on 11 May the then Taoiseach, and Ministers for Finance, and Business, Enterprise and Innovation met the heads of the five retail banks. I have the minutes of that meeting here. At that meeting the CEO of Bank of Ireland claimed that the charging of interest accrued during mortgage payment breaks was required by the regulator. The CEO of AIB said that unless the additional interest was charged, loans would go into default and the credit ratings of customers would be impacted. Jeremy Masding of Permanent TSB said that the approach that was being taken was required to prevent the loans from being considered as going into default.

This morning at the Special Committee on Covid-19 response, I questioned the Governor of the Central Bank. All those claims are false, untrue and misinformation. That has been clarified by the Governor of the Central Bank. I knew that at the time. What surprises me is that the Minister for Finance, the then Taoiseach and the then Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation did not know. What will the Taoiseach do about State-owned banks that misinformed the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach of the time? Will he take steps to support ordinary customers and prevent them from being ripped off, as has happened in Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium and other areas where legislation was introduced?

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