Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The O'Donovan family in Clonakilty has been in business for seven generations. Tom and Dena O'Donovan have been in business for 44 years running a viable seventh generation town-centre hotel with 21 bedrooms and two apartments, employing 70 people in the heart of Clonakilty. In 2007, they took out a business loan with AIB under a 30-year repayment plan. Several months later, Ireland had a bank meltdown and AIB hit the O'Donovans with changes to their repayment plan, reducing it from 30 years to 12 years. There were no negotiations whatsoever. Obviously, the O'Donovans objected, but AIB railroaded ahead with the restructuring and a suggested five-year review. The O'Donovans sold family property to assist with the restructuring and continued to pay the new sum. Astonishingly, the O'Donovans discovered that, unknown to them, their loan had been sold to a vulture fund, Everyday Finance. AIB then closed their bank account in Clonakilty and transferred the account to Fermoy, taking it from ten doors away to 90 km away. In anyone's view, this was to stop the O'Donovans from engaging with the local bank.

As far as I know, by law a bank can only sell on a performing loan to a third party that offers the same facility. AIB did not do this. The O'Donovans tried to engage with Everyday Finance but it made it clear that it is not interested in piecemeal repayments, only large lump sums. At one stage it suggested throwing a few million up on the table. As the O'Donovans are unable to get a figure for what they now owe Everyday Finance, their accountant advised the family to make no further repayments. In all this time, no communication has been forthcoming. The O'Donovans are led to believe that their loan was purchased for approximately €365,000. To try to start engagement with Everyday Finance, the O'Donovans offered €800,000. That was well over double what the loan was bought for. While this was rejected by Everyday Finance and subsequent increased offers have been rejected, no gesture to engage has been afforded to the O'Donovan family other than the rejection of their offers one after another.

In 2022, a receiver was appointed. In all this, the O'Donovans only crime was that they owed too little and that their property is valued at little more than they owe. Their bad luck was to trust AIB and to enter into a business agreement with it, which AIB broke. Since I raised this question with the Tánaiste 20 days ago, both the O'Donovan family and I have been flooded with similar reports from businesses and individuals who have been treated shockingly and illegally by the banks and vulture funds. We have no proper independent regulatory body for these people to turn to when they are being illegally treated. Banks and vulture funds can railroad all over a person's life without batting an eyelid. I ask the Minister to appoint a proper regulatory body immediately. I also ask him as a Minister in a Government that has a major shareholding in AIB to launch an immediate investigation into how the family have been treated by AIB and Everyday Finance. To hear for himself the pain this hugely popular family in Clonakilty are going through, will he meet with the O'Donovan family to discuss this matter?

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