Tracker mortgage scandal to be told through the eyes of the people most affected in RTE documentary series

A new two-part documentary series starting tonight on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player tells the full story of the Tracker mortgage scandal through the eyes of the people most affected, as well as a small band of people who helped them fight back against the banks.

The Tracker mortgage scandal is billed as the biggest consumer banking scandal in the history of Ireland leaving some of its victims facing financial ruin, ongoing health problems, and in some cases on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The scandal would cost the banks over €1 billion in fines and redress to more than 40,000 affected customers and their families. Less than twenty years ago however, while many of their customers were being incorrectly taken off their valuable Tracker mortgages, the Government pumped €64 billion of taxpayers’ cash into many of these same banks to stop them from collapsing.

Padraic Kissane, a financial advisor and mortgage broker who took on the banks and tried to get tracker mortgages back for his clients, said "The thing to understand about the track of mortgage scandal is, people at the time were already under severe financial strain because of the economic collapse. When the Tracker scandal occurred, it really was a straw that broke the camel's back."

"When I first started looking into the whole Tracker area, I had no idea it was going to take over my life. A lot of people would probably say I became obsessive about it because the more I looked, the deeper that my concerns became."

Prior to the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, Thomas and Claire Ryan bought their family home in Wexford and the Dublin house Claire grew up in as an investment property with tracker mortgages prior to the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. In December of 2006 the Ryans signed up to a three year fixed rate on these loans, in the expectation that they would then revert to a tracker rate. But when this fixed rate period ended, the bank said the Ryans were no longer entitled to get their tracker rate back.

"When the tracker was denied to us, and the rises started to kick in, it was absolutely crippling,” Thomas Ryan said. “It was because it was such a crippling amount of money, it was going to destroy us. This put huge pressure on our family on a day-to-day basis. Huge tension came into the house, massive tension. We'd have quibbles that we would never have had, and it was difficult to protect it from the children.

“We didn't know it then back in 2011, we were two years in at that point, but it would take another seven years, before we would see an end to the tracker issue in our house. It escalated so bad that one night I woke up and I had had a stroke in my sleep. I've been very lucky to survive."

Another couple, Caitriona and John Redmond, took out a tracker mortgage for €189,000 in June 2003 to buy their family home in Balbriggan, north County Dublin. In May 2007, they fixed their main mortgage for three years expecting it to then revert to a Tracker mortgage but were refused. Under huge financial pressure, the couple entered into a series of debt agreements with their bank.

"You give them literally every single thing you've spent money on for the previous three months,” Catriona Redmond said. “And you justify to them every single cent you've paid. Once or twice they came to us and they said, you're spending too much on food. There was five of us in the house, so two adults, and then the rest children, and we had the budget down to €70 euro for our family for a week, which is bonkers.

“At one point, the bank started talking to us about maybe putting the house back on the market."

John Redmond said "I have a lot of anger about not being able to afford more kids. I have a lot of anger in general with the bank. Someone else has made a decision on your life. It's someone high up in the bank. They've made that decision and ruined an awful lot of people's lives."

At the same time Irish Independent journalist Charlie Weston continues breaking stories about what is going on.

"I could see people were being harmed,” Weston said. “This was going to turn into the single biggest banking overcharging scandal that we've ever had in this country.”