At last! Paschal calls in bank bosses over the tracker scandal
THE Government has finally moved to address the tracker mortgage scandal – by ordering bank chiefs to appear before Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the executives will meet the minister next Monday and Wednesday, when he will ‘admonish them for their conduct’.
The move comes after weeks of pressure on the issue, including yesterday’s revelation in the Irish Daily Mail that the Central Bank had no power to insist on redress for the majority of cases because they happened before 2013, when the Central Bank was given more powers.
The announcement of the meeting comes after Mr Varadkar yes- terday told the Dáil that the Government had ‘lost patience’ on the issue.
‘The Government believes the behaviour of the banks in relation to removing people from tracker mortgages was scandalous. We also believe the banks have been dragging their feet in solving this problem at a real human cost. Some people have lost their homes,’ he said.
‘It is our view that people affected should have had their tracker mortgages restored and should have been fully compensated by now. As a Government, we have lost patience.’
He said that as a consequence, the Finance Minister has arranged to meet the CEOs of the main banks, Bank of Ireland, AIB, Ulster Bank, PTSB and KBC, on Monday and Wednesday week where he will ‘admonish them for their conduct on behalf of the Government’. The timing of the meetings has been set by the Government.
He further raised the prospect of increased powers for the Central Bank, or for more taxation on banks. Mr Varadkar said Mr Donohoe will seek a ‘detailed explanation as to why the process has been so slow and their plans for resolving it quickly’.
The Mail also understands that Central Bank chief Professor Philip Lane will today claim that his office is already ‘working to the limit of its powers’ to get justice for the thousands of homeowners affected by the tracker mortgage scandal.
Prof. Lane is this morning expected to tell the Finance Committee: ‘We have had to repeatedly challenge certain lenders and push to the limits of our powers in order to drive them to identify and remedy affected customers in an appropriate manner. If certain lenders had offered better initial proposals in respect of redress and compensation, the examination would be at a more advanced stage.’
He added: ‘It is clear that all lenders did not sufficiently recognise or address the scale of those unacceptable failings until Central Bank intervention.’
Prof. Lane will say that the Central Bank recognises the ‘hurt and damage’ the actions of lenders have caused.
He will say that the Central Bank is challenging the findings of the reviews by each lender through on-site inspections, reviewing materials and meeting with the directors of these banks. Prof. Lane is also expected to say some lenders have offered unacceptably low redress offers to their customers. Despite the limits to what it can do, he will say that the Central Bank is liaising with gardaí on the issue.