It's the biggest consumer overcharging scandal in the history of the State which cost the banks in excess of €1 billion in fines and redress to customers.
Why then are many of the same banks involved using confidentiality clauses to potentially stop those most affected from sharing their stories? asks John Downes, Series Producer of Trackers: The People V The Banks.
It was a time of great excitement for Sonia and Michael Grace when they bought their forever home in Cavan.
Back in 2006, this warm and engaging couple were looking forward to building a life together in their new property.
They took out a tracker mortgage to fund the purchase and a few years later moved bank and fixed their rate for three years.
But in 2011 when they sought to revert to a tracker mortgage - which by then was better value than a fixed or variable mortgage due to falling ECB rates - they were told in no uncertain terms that this was not an option.
Sonia calculates that the difference between what they should have been paying and what the bank were charging them in the first four months was approximately €600 per month.
"We wouldn’t have had to choose between fuel, food and coal. Our life ended up spiralling after that unfortunately, downhill," Sonia said.
It’s a familiar tale, told to us on numerous occasions as we sat drinking tea in kitchens and living rooms all over the country.
But during researcher Eanya Gallagher’s many conversations with them, another concerning aspect to Michael and Sonia’s story emerged.
As part of the Central Bank’s unprecedented investigation into the tracker mortgage scandal, Sonia and Michael eventually got their tracker back and were paid just over €14,000 in compensation.
They were deeply unhappy with the amounts on offer, which included a payment of €59.99 in recognition of the "time value money" lost to them by for the years they went without their tracker.
"All of my health was impacted because of the overcharge, because of the stress. Michael's health as well, you know, and our marriage too, had suffered," Sonia said.
"I ended up setting up an office in the sitting room and I said 'this is war’."
They appealed their case through an independent appeal panel set up and run by their bank under guidelines issued by the Central Bank.
Forensically and methodically, Sonia answered detailed questions in front of an oral appeals panel.
Eventually, they won their case.
As Michael puts it, "not everyone has a Sonia".
They were awarded an additional €64,000 in compensation, a figure which they felt was still nowhere near enough to compensate for the trauma they experienced at the hands of their bank.
Exhausted after years of fighting, they decided to accept.
But when the settlement agreement arrived, it contained a confidentiality clause.
They are adamant that they felt obliged to sign it or risk losing their award from the panel.
"You get your award, but then you have to sign this confidentiality agreement where it's a non-disclosure and it's ex gratia payment.
"You had to sign it. You weren't given any other choice. It's a gagging order," Sonia said.
"We didn’t do anything wrong."
"They just want it sort of kept hushed, kept quiet," Michael added.
"I think people need to know what people have to go through."
Thomas and Claire Ryan, who first shared their story in last week’s episode and whose bombshell October 2017 appearance before the Dáil Committee on Finance we revisit in our concluding episode, were also asked to sign a confidentiality clause.
In their case this formed part of a mediated settlement with their bank, negotiated independently of the Central Bank.
"We were approached to do a mediated settlement, and then we were told that we had to sign an agreement not to talk about the money they had taken from us and the circumstances around that," Thomas explained.
"We had to sign an agreement to say we wouldn't discuss that, which is a farce."
For their part, the banks say that such clauses are common and allow both sides to maintain the confidentiality of their negotiations and mediated settlements.
The Central Bank meanwhile told us that it has not and does not require confidentiality clauses or non-disclosure agreements where an award is made as part of its own Tracker Mortgage Examination.
But it did not say whether it was concerned that Sonia and Michael felt forced to sign just such a clause as part of an appeals panel process built into that same examination.
It noted that some customers and lenders reach settlements involving this type of clause and that the bank has no jurisdiction in relation to legal settlements.
It also said it does not intervene in the appeal panel decisions, but it monitors the progress and outcomes from appeals.
This begs the obvious question. After the behaviour of the banks during the tracker mortgage scandal - which as late as October 2017 was being labelled by the then Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe as "disgraceful" - why shouldn’t those worst affected be able to unburden themselves without the threat of litigation if they so wish?
The former chair of the finance committee and current Leas Ceann Comhairle, John McGuinness, is quite clear.
He believes the public interest is not best served by these clauses being used in such agreements.
Debt campaigner David Hall, whose iCare charity supported Sonia and Michael Grace and who personally attended their oral appeal hearing out of solidarity, puts it another way.
He noted that only one in ten of those who were identified as impacted by the Central Bank investigation went on to pursue an appeal.
"When there was only one in ten appeals, the banks don't want that rising to two and three in ten appeals if people hear there's been some that have been successful," he said.
He believes such clauses have "one clear intent".
"That is to be very clear, they're in charge, they're in control. You do as you are told. And if you don't do it, by the way, if you don't sign it, you don't get your settlement, and the whole thing comes unstuck.
"And if you do sign it and breach it at some point in the future, we reserve our position to come and attack you, again. So this is designed to silence people. This is designed to gag them."
In our concluding episode of Trackers: The People V The Banks, we also examine what happened between the announcement of the Central Bank’s Tracker Mortgage Examination and its conclusion with a final report in 2019.
Current Bank of Ireland employee Claire O'Leary and her husband John come from generations of Bank of Ireland workers on both sides of their family.
When their tracker mortgage was wrongly taken off of them, the Wexford couple and their two young daughters ended up having to leave their home and were left facing bankruptcy.
They were shocked to receive a letter saying they had been identified as part of the Central Bank review.
"Up until we got that letter, there was no thought that the bank could've made a mistake. I didn't even know what tracker mortgage scandal was at that stage," John said.
Their story, and the stories of so many others around the country, surely gives lie to the notion that the tracker mortgage scandal is a thing of the past.
You only have to spend five minutes in the company of these brave and courageous people, to know that nothing could be further from the truth.
