Conor Pope does not mince his words when it comes to the recent revelations about banking practices and tracker mortgages. The Consumer Affairs Correspondent joined Ray on The Ray D'Arcy Show to give Ray an overview of how these events unfolded. Conor led Ray through his recent Irish Times article on the subject, "Need proof the banks have it in for us? Here are 10 examples." He believes the banks "need to be held to account."

Those worst hit by this scandal, Conor told Ray, were bank customers who followed advice to temporarily fix the rate on their tracker mortgages on the understanding that this would provide security against rising rates and that they would revert to their regular rate calculation after an agreed period of about 5 years:

"In 2008, there was an awful lot of talk of the European Central bank increasing its rates up and up and up so people were being advised to fix their mortgages for a period of 3 years or 5 years…They would have been paying a higher rate but they would have been giving themselves security. And then, of course, 2008 happened…interest rates just fell and fell…they fell from around…4.25% to 0.05%…The people who were on the fixed rate and variable mortgages were paying through the nose and the people on the trackers were on the pig's back, so to speak."

When the agreed time had passed, Conor says, these customers instead found themselves stuck with the higher fixed rate, the banks claiming they no longer offered tracker mortgages to customers.

"They should have reverted automatically to the tracker but of course the banks said 'Oh no, we don't offer trackers anymore…they're gone'."

Conor has been writing about this issue for a long time and feels a great deal of sympathy for those affected.

“Their lives have been effectively destroyed. And they’ve been destroyed largely as a result of the greed and this relentless abuse by the bank and that’s why the banks need to be held to account.” 

Conor is sure of one thing. These people have been let down on all sides, including the media.

"They've been let down by the Central Bank. They've been let down by the government. They've been let down by the media, and I have to hold my hands up and say we should have been talking about this story in a much more profound way in 2014, in 2012…because that's when these people's lives were being cast into turmoil."

Ray put it to Conor that other European countries have not had the same issues. How is it possible that Irish bankers could be so different to their European counterparts? Conor thinks it all comes down to regulation.

"If people in France and Spain and Germany all pay…half the rate that we're paying, what's going on there? And what's going on is the banks have us over a barrel. They've always had us over a barrel. And they know that…You need tough regulation and you need governments and powers-that-be who will say to these people 'You just can't do that anymore'. And that isn't happening."

Listen back to the full interview with Conor Pope on The Ray D'Arcy Show here.

(Photo: Getty Images / Sean Gallup)