AROUND 70,000 mortgage customers at bailed-out AIB have been “hung out to drug” by the State-owned bank.
That’s the view of Cork South Central TD Michael McGrath, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on finance, who said the bank was treating variable rate mortgage customers as “sacrificial lambs.”
Two days after the bailed-out bank paid bondholders 1 billion of public money, 70,000 of its variable rate customers have been hit with a second interest rate rise in just three months.
The half-point increase means an additional 30 in monthly repayments on every 100,000 borrowed, or an annual increase of 720 on a mortgage of 200,000.
The increase, due in November, follows a similar hike in September and means that the combined annual costs of both rises is more than 1,440 a year for a 200,000 mortgage. And the concern among local businesses is that the latest price hikes will drive down consumer spending in the run-up to Christmas when struggling retailers are relying on increased trade.