@TMH2017 @Hopeful7
So that was a very strong performance from Pearse Doherty and Michael McGrath last night. I'm really grateful that both of them had so clearly and genuinely taken up the issue and didn't let John O'Beirne off the hook when he spoke about the majority of the group having been sorted.
I got quite angry at the way John tried to characterise the insite article as if it was something that was mostly quite clear (in the Bank's favour) but had an element that caused some confusion. That just wasn't the case. The article set out what we all believed in 2008 and the basis on which we all acted when the tracker was still available. A different interpretation was later applied to support closing the tracker off to us.
1. The article and John's interpretation (October 2008)
I know that the article has been included elsewhere on these posts but it's useful to post it here again.
Briefly they said in the article said that the tracker was closing the next day to new business and the only people who would be entitled to benefit from the rate were those who were a) already on it and b) a group who would roll
to it (which it said it would expand upon later on the article). Note that John kept on using the language "roll
back to" in his performance at the committee perpetuating the bank's line to date of "you must have been on a tracker to be remediated". Nowhere is the term "roll back" used in the communication. It's "roll to". That sounds like splitting hairs but
roll back suggests it's a right conferred from the product you were on previously (the banks interpretation), and
roll to which suggests a right conferred from the product you're currently on (as we interpreted).
In the section where they expanded on group b), they explained it as being those who were on the Two Year 3.95% rate. Here's the line again:
Staff who are currently on staff 2-year fixed rate - currently 3.95% - will roll to ECB +0.75% with no BIK implications as per their original signed mortgage agreement at the end of their 2-year fixed period. Staff will received notification 30 days prior to the end of their fixed rate term. This notification will also offer a range of fixed and variable rate products. If you do not respond to this notification, your account will automatically default to the Staff Tracker ECB + 0.75%.
As Michael McGrath pointed out, no reasonable reader of the document could have read this to mean that only a subset of those on the two year rate would roll on (and specifically that it depended on previously having been on a tracker).
John said later in the submission that they accepted that this communication was "confusing to those who had previously been on a tracker" and hence they were included. How would this have been more confusing to those who had previously been on a tracker than those who had not been? We were all in the same boat. We were on a product which we thought was rolling to a tracker. We all read it the same way.
2. The suggested loophole - MFA's and Original letters of offer.
John kept on referring to the piece that would have made it clear to us that it was only a subset of those on the 3.95% rate and that's the "as per their original signed mortgage agreement" piece. I certainly didn't read that as a qualification that I needed to check. I read it simply as a statement of fact....something to explain to readers of the notification who were on rates other than the tracker or the 2-year rate why they weren't getting a tracker. John suggests that it should have prompted us to go looking at documentation and also required us to know that the article was referring to the letter of offer only and that the MFA of the two year product (which refers to rolling to a tracker) doesn't qualify as a mortgage agreement.
Funnily enough, in a later part of the hearing, when explaining where the 6,000 new cases came from, John and Francesca referred to the average number of products someone might be on over the life of their mortgage (6) and the confusion that this combination of 6 MFAs and one letter of offer might cause. Therefore they brought people in because of that confusion. Why did that not apply here?
And the one thing that I really don't understand is,
if the Bank genuinely meant that it was all about the letter of offer, why on earth would you specify the Two year rate in the insite article when you know that people came from all sorts of other products to get on to it with all types of original letters of offer?
As I've said elsewhere, I firmly believe that it was the intention that the staff two year would roll onto a tracker as was the sales practice for all fixed rates since 2004 and that after the closure, someone found a legally supported argument to reduce the amount of trackers using the "original letter of offer" argument regardless of the expectation that had been created in 2007 and 2008.
3. Subsequent clarification (in later 2008)
John said that the issue was cleared up three weeks later. I don't remember an announcement to that effect and certainly not within 3 weeks? Does anyone else? I clearly remember the letter I received that December when my two years was coming to a close telling me that I wasn't getting the tracker. That was at least 7 weeks later and it was like a hammer blow.
The thing is, the language in that letter didn't use the argument of language nuance. It said that the piece about the 2 year mortgage was based on "the best information available at the time". And (as I've said before), that was the whole point. It was the best information we all had.
Also, crucially, John declined to inform the committee that the insite announcement was made on the day before the tracker closed (and there were many who acted on that day) and the suggested clarifications were a long time after the closure.
4. Who's in now and who's not based on December 2017 criteria
I think (and I can only guess) that this is what has happened.
I believe the Central Bank led with the argument that those who had ever been on a tracker should have the right to go back to it. The Bank has acceded to this knowing that this applies to the majority of those who had been on the 2 year rate and that this would take the edge of the insite communication issue (in the same way that John attempted to tell Pearse that the cohort Pearse was talking about had been remediated). I don't believe it has shared the insite communication with the Central Bank in any meaningful way.
Where to next?
I hope Francesca was genuine in saying she will look at this again. She certainly came across as being genuine. However I was really disappointed that she didn't seem to know about this. This was a communication that had been raised by John McGuinness at the Bank's last appearance so shouldn't she have known all about it and the rationale the bank has used? John O'Beirne clearly knew that a decision had been made to exclude a number of us and surely she should have been briefed on it?
I hope that she hadn't been briefed, and when she's presented with the facts, she makes the right decision.
If she is genuine, she will rule in our favour, and clarify it immediately. This isn't a complex one needing case by case investigations. Either you're honouring the statement, or you're not.
It would be great if those affected by this would affirm that here or through the other channels. Pearse Doherty and Michael McGrath have served us really well here and we shouldn't let it fade out.
Attached note from 2008: