Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 September 2026
116. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the action his Department is taking to address the continued tracker mortgage and consumer protection issues arising from the transfer of mortgages (details supplied). [68857/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraWhat actions is the Minister's Department taking to address the continued tracker mortgage and consumer protection issues arising from the transfer of mortgages from KBC to the Bank of Ireland? I have spoken recently to a family who have recently lost their home because of overcharging both by KBC and Bank of Ireland. What action is the Department taking to address this?
Tracker mortgage failings by lenders have caused significant distress. That phrase probably does not quite capture the level of distress. In some cases, it has had devastating consequences for the affected customers. The Central Bank of Ireland launched the tracker mortgage examination in 2015. This followed engagement and intervention with a number of lenders when it became clear that tracker-related issues could be industry-wide. The tracker mortgage examination was the largest, most complex and most significant consumer protection review ever undertaken by our Central Bank. It involved an initial review of more than 2 million mortgage accounts by lenders. The aim of the tracker mortgage examination was to put in place a framework that ensured lenders identified and put impacted customers back in the position they would have been in if the lenders' failings had not occurred. This required lenders to examine the extent to which they had met their contractual obligations to tracker mortgage customers and to examine the transparency of their communications with customers in relation to tracker-related issues.
The tracker mortgage examination was designed in a way which allowed affected customers, after they had received redress and compensation, to continue to have options to appeal. This could be done to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman and to the courts. Over the course of its work, the Central Bank produced regular progress updates and published its final supervisory report in 2019, which is available on its website. It also concluded seven enforcement investigations against lenders with tracker mortgage failings. The Central Bank of Ireland advises that, at the end of June 2025, circa 42,000 customer accounts were impacted across 11 lenders in the tracker mortgage examination. Circa €750 million has been paid in redress and compensation to impacted customers. The Central Bank also advises that more than 99% of redress and compensation due to impacted customers identified in the tracker mortgage examination has concluded and compensation has been paid. Remaining cases are understood to be due in the main to uncontactable customers.
The Central Bank has also indicated that it continues to monitor the outcomes of any complaints, appeals and court cases and has communicated to lenders the expectation that they must fully consider whether any individual customer issues arising could have the potential to impact more widely. The Central Bank's consumer protection code applies in full to all lenders and all mortgages.
In the case in question, this is not an uncontactable customer. The family took out a tracker mortgage with KBC. For years, the bank charged them the wrong rate, which KBC eventually admitted to. When KBC left the Irish market in 2023, the family's mortgage was transferred to Bank of Ireland. The overcharging did not stop. It carried on under Bank of Ireland. The customer wrote to Bank of Ireland's CEO and asked to meet, but the bank refused. Instead, the arrears letters kept coming, as did the repossession warnings. In the end, the customer was being overcharged to the point where he could afford the mortgage. He was forced to sell his family home. This had a devastating impact. I have written to the CEO of Bank of Ireland raising this case, and I have yet to receive a response. Does the Minister accept that there could be many more people in this loan book affected by overcharging? Will he, as Minister for Finance, ask the Central Bank to examine how incorrect balances from redemption figures persisted after years of tracker remediation and how many other customers are affected?
Obviously, I will not comment on an individual mortgage situation, and the Deputy is not asking me to comment on it. I appreciate that is not the point he is raising in the Dáil tonight. "Yes" is the short answer to his question. I will ask the Central Bank of Ireland to specifically look at the issue the Deputy has raised. If he wishes to either copy me on that correspondence or send me other correspondence outlining the situation, I would be very happy to speak to the Governor of the Central Bank and ask the Central Bank to engage with the Deputy directly. The figures that are available to me, which I am sharing with the House and are available to the Deputy, show robust action by the Central Bank across a whole variety of lenders - 11 of them - affecting over 42,000 customers, with over €750 million paid in redress and compensation in what was the biggest examination ever carried out by the Central Bank on this issue. It was the largest, most complex and most significant consumer protection review. If the Deputy has, as he clearly does, some information that he would like the Central Bank to consider beyond that individual case and to provide an assurance, I would be very happy to seek to do that for him.
I welcome the Minister's response that he will contact the Central Bank about this wider issue and ask it to examine it. I am not just raising a specific case. This is an example and if this has affected the family in question, there could well be a very significant number of others in the loan book that was transferred who are similarly affected. That warrants investigation by the Central Bank. I welcome the Minister's commitment that he will contact the Central Bank about that. If he needs more information, I will certainly engage with him and pass it on.
I certainly will. For the record of the House, I do not have any information at my disposal in relation to that wider issue or the potential for a wider issue. However, considering that the Deputy has raised the matter on the floor of the Dáil, I will send a transcript of this exchange to the Central Bank. If I or the Central Bank requires any further information, I will ask it to come back to the Deputy. I will report back to the Deputy once I have received an update from the Central Bank.
