Hi Mega
Interesting analysis.
The only thing is that I got hopeful in the past when the Appeals Panel sent out two or three of these "Your appeal is still receiving attention". I thought that they must be reconsidering it. Then they issued the same standard reject letter without actually reading the actual complaint.
So I suspect that the same thing is going on here. But you could be right. Maybe they are waiting for the Ombudsman to decide.
The CB has not bent the knew to AIB or any other bank. 30,000 people got significant refunds. My guess is that without the CB's intervention, no more than 300 would have gone to the Ombudsman or the Courts. They were slow to get going but have done a good job overall.
The CB has a different role to the Ombudsman and the courts. It is not its role to interpret the contract and decide that AIB was right or wrong. I suspect that the CB encouraged AIB to do more for the prevailing rate people but AIB dug in their heels. The compromise reached was that they had to write to everyone and opened up the Appeal Process. Up to then I had lobbied AIB and they were simply insisting that these 6,000 borrowers were not impacted and they had no intention of even writing to them. We might or might not get a favourable decision from the Ombudsman, but without the Central Bank, we would not have the opportunity of complaining to the Ombudsman.
Brendan