Sir, – Some coverage of the Central Bank’s report into tracker mortgage cover has termed payments to customers as “redress and/or compensation”.
The vast bulk of the €78 million payment to customers has been a refund of their own money for which they were unscrupulously overcharged. As far as I am aware, no interest has been paid in lieu of the bank using this money, which in some cases, was nine years in the hands of the bank.
The amount of “compensation” awarded is somewhere in the region of 10per cent to 15 per cent of their overcharge, which, in all cases, wouldn’t pay them for the effort gone into getting it back, let alone make up for the very real financial sacrifices or accumulated stress in this period. The time or choices which have been missed during this decade can not be given back and appropriate compensation, while hard to calculate, has not been offered.
Some banks are also continuing not to follow guidelines and refusing to enter the redress, refund, compensation phase for as long as they can possibly push it out. No significant penalty for the banks in question are present here either; however, this has a continuing effect on the customers mental and financial health.
The banks need to be held to account. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH BYRNE,
Dublin 3.