83 AIB customers had debts of €1m or more written off

The total value of the loans of the more than 1,900 AIB customers who have had their debts written down by over 90% since 2015 is €533.8m, the bank has told an Oireachtas committee.

The lender said 83 of those customers had more than €1m in debt written off.

Overall, the bank said it wrote down €3.5 billion in debt between 2015 and 2022.

The data was contained in a letter sent to the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, following the company's appearance before it on March 2.

The lender was invited to appear at that time following media reports that it had significantly written down debts owed by a well known individual.

On the day of the hearing, executives disclosed that 1,900 customers had their debts written down by over 90% since 2015.

But they were unable to provide answers to some of the other specific questions asked by TDs and Senators.

However, it pledged to respond in a written format at a later date.

In that letter the bank also details how 577 of the 1,936 loans written down by more than 90% were mortgages.

SME loans accounted for the other 1,359.

The bank also detailed how of the roughly 150,000 customers who its debt support unit had assisted over the period, 66,988 or 45% were mortgage customers.

A further 50,636 or 34% were personal loan customers and the balance of 32,166 were SMEs borrowers.

Of the almost 67,000 mortgages in difficulties, 25,348 were granted an arrears capitalisation arrangement, while 13,744 were put on interest only repayments.

At the committee hearing earlier this month, the bank told members that the 1,900 customers whose debts had been written down by at least 90% represented just 1% of the 150,000 customers helped by its debt support unit.

Asked about the new data, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohue, said, "if any debt write downs did happen, they only happened at the end of very exhaustive and demanding processes, and only happened after banks had pursued many different options."

Speaking to reporters he said he was only ever briefed in "very general terms" on insolvency procedures with regard to unsustainable debt at the banks while he was Minister for Finance.

He added that he was never briefed on or involved in any individual case.

He said the vast majority of cases were "resolved inside the personal insolvency procedures".

"The procedures that were involved in our new personal insolvency guidelines that was set up after the global financial crisis were followed and this continues to be the case," he claimed.

"So any briefing I received was all very general terms. And I was never involved in nor would I be involved in any individual case."