![\"Sinn](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4dafd5c3-aa33-496e-bf33-46d48ed36826.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBanks are being given \u2018free pass\u2019 to squeeze mortgage holders, Sinn F\u00e9in says\n<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the Government should call in the banks to its offices to demand that they stop withholding the benefit of lower rates from mortgage holders.<\/p>\n
He claimed the banks have not passed on the full benefit of any of this year\u2019s four ECB rate cuts to their customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment is standing by and letting banks rip people off in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis,\u201d Mr Doherty said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite four rate cuts this year, the banks have not passed on the full benefit of even one of those rate cuts yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a scandalous cash grab that is hurting households and first-time buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said banks refusing to pass on the benefit of ECB interest rate cuts is unacceptable and the Government should immediately call in the banks.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, they are giving them a free pass meaning banks can continue to squeeze workers and families by keeping interest rates far above the EU average,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the Government is giving banks a ‘free pass’. Photo: Gareth Chaney<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – September 16th<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means higher mortgage payments without justification in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ECB cut rates by 0.25 percentage points four times this year, on top of four cuts last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese same banks are recording record profits and being allowed to pay almost no tax,\u201d Mr Doherty said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government must get on to the side of the public and consumers and stand up to the banks.\u201d<\/p>\n
In May, there was a rate reduction of up to 0.75 percentage points on all of AIB\u2019s non-green fixed rate mortgages.<\/p>\n
Its subsidiaries Haven and EBS recently cut their rates too.<\/p>\n
But mortgage experts said many of the AIB Group mortgage rates remain above the average for the market, which the Central Bank said last week was now 3.6pc.<\/p>\n
\nWe will continue to keep our mortgage pricing under review to ensure we remain competitive<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
PTSB cut its rates at the start of the year.<\/p>\n
Daragh Cassidy of mortgage brokers Bonkers.ie said: \u201cIt\u2019s true the banks haven\u2019t passed on all the ECB reductions, i.e. the full two percentage points. But they didn\u2019t pass on all the increases either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both AIB and Bank of Ireland had no comment when Mr Doherty\u2019s statement was put to them.<\/p>\n
PTSB said as the ECB rate increased, it did not raise mortgage rates at the same pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also made a number of reductions to our mortgage rates over the past two years, most recently at the start of this year when we announced significant reductions to our fixed-rate product suite of between 0.15 percentage points and 0.95 points,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to keep our mortgage pricing under review to ensure we remain competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week the Central Bank of Ireland said average mortgage rates were unchanged in July from the previous month at 3.6pc.<\/p>\n
This leaves rates at their lowest level since March 2023.<\/p>\n
But the prospect of further mortgage rate cuts in this market is slim after the European Central Bank left its rates unchanged last week.<\/p>\n
And markets are not now expecting any more ECB rate cuts this year.<\/p>\n
Olga Brindley of Nua Money said: \u201cGiven there appears to be a limit to the extent to which the ECB might cut its rates in the foreseeable future, fixed rates could become even more appealing to Irish borrowers now, as they become less concerned about losing out on the cheaper mortgages that sometimes follow an ECB rate cut.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Banks are being given \u2018free pass\u2019 to squeeze mortgage holders, Sinn F\u00e9in says Sinn F\u00e9in finance spokesman Pearse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[41023,79,22767,2107,47010,18,19,17,2108,9649,39513,47],"class_list":{"0":"post-67128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-allied-irish-banks","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-central-bank-of-ireland","11":"tag-charlie-weston","12":"tag-ebs","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-money-experts","17":"tag-pearse-doherty","18":"tag-permanent-tsb","19":"tag-sinn-fein"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}