Pressure for legislation to protect mortgage customers
Fianna Fáil will push for the tough measures to protect borrowers ripped off by lenders who wrongly changed the interest on mortgage repayments and moved customers on to more costly rates.
The move is likely to embarrass the Government as it scrambles to contain the outcry over the mortgage scandal, which has seen more than 20,000 customers ripped off by lenders.
However, it is doubtful if a private member’s Dáil motion proposed by the main opposition party will be accepted in full by the Government, which is meeting bank chiefs this week over the scandal.
The FF motion from finance spokesman Michael McGrath says the lack of action taken by the banks to date has “inflicted further unnecessary pain and hardship on those affected”.
It wants the banks to correct the overcharging as a “matter of urgency” and place all relevant mortgage accounts back on tracker mortgage rates without delay. Figures on those affected must be published, it says, and compensation paid out in line with agreed Central Bank rules.
Crucially, Fianna Fáil, which supports the Government in the confidence and supply agreement, wants “a thorough investigation” as to how the tracker scandal occurred and a probe into whether there was any “co-ordination, formal or informal, across the industry”.
Any offences should be reported to Revenue and gardaí, among others, it says, and extra powers should be given to the Central Bank. But the party wants options to impose sanctions on the banks.
The Government should also vote against the reappointment of the entire board of directors in respect of the banks in which the State is a shareholder, and introduce legislation to stop all insolvency and repossession proceedings on tracker-related mortgages until all affected customers are redressed, it says.
The Government will also be called upon to introduce legislation that would enable class action suits that would enable a group of affected customers to collectively take legal action against lenders.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s spokesman said the Government’s position on the motion would be decided at a Cabinet meeting today.
