Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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108. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 224 to 227 of 17 February 2015, the status of the enforcement investigation by the Central Bank; the number of relevant customers who will be entitled to refunds; the total loss involved; when appropriate redress for those customers will be made; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17791/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy's questions refer to an Enforcement Investigation by the Central Bank of Ireland ("CBI") into permanent tsb ("PTSB").  This Investigation relates to the circumstances in which the bank did not allow certain customers to move to or to return to a tracker rate mortgage at the end of a fixed rate term.  I am informed by PTSB that this investigation is continuing.

PTSB has confirmed to me that while that investigation by the CBI is continuing, the bank has implemented a comprehensive Mortgage Redress Programme for relevant account holders.  This was announced publicly in July 2015 and is being undertaken with oversight by the CBI.

That Mortgage Redress Programme identified 1,152 accounts with PTSB which were impacted by this issue.  To date 1,030 of those accounts (approximately 90%) have been fully redressed.  A further 32 are in the process of being redressed or have been partially redressed, 17 will receive redress in the future while the bank is awaiting forms from the relevant account holders in respect of 73 accounts.  It is entirely at the discretion of the relevant account holders whether to return a form in this instance or not.

The Mortgage Redress Programme also identified 220 impacted accounts in Springboard Mortgages.  In these cases 202 accounts (approximately  92%) have now been fully redressed and in the case of 18 accounts, the process is ongoing.

PTSB has confirmed to me that it is committed to continuing its work in respect of any outstanding cases including the hire of specialist agencies to seek to trace relevant account holders who may no longer be living at the correspondence address on the PTSB system.

To date the bank has redressed impacted accounts to the value of approximately €41 million. The majority of these impacted accounts were redressed before the end of 2015.

There are three elements to the redress referred to above:

- In the first place, redress refers to the process whereby the bank calculates the difference between the amounts actually paid in respect of the mortgage accounts since the bank failure took place and the amount that would have required to be paid had the failure not occurred.  In order, any overpayment that is identified  is set against any arrears on the account, or repaid to the relevant mortgage account, or where there are excess funds, repaid directly  to the relevant account holders.  This approach ensures that the mortgage account is correctly restored to the position it would have been in had the failure not occurred.

- Secondly, redress refers to the payment of compensation to relevant account holders.

- Thirdly redress refers to the payment of €400 to account holders for use, at their discretion, for independent financial advice.

Separately PTSB has put in place a comprehensive, independent appeals process to ensure that account holders who are unhappy with the bank's redress in this matter can seek an independent review of that redress.

Following this event last Summer, PTSB publicly announced that it had established a Mortgage Product Review Group (MPRG) to review the banks mortgage book in order to identify any other cases where the contractual terms and conditions attached to mortgage accounts were not being fully honoured by the bank or whether other material issues such as the provision of key information at relevant times require further examination.  This work is ongoing. 

PTSB is also participating fully in a separate CBI led review of tracker mortgages across all the main Irish banks.