This is personal opinion but be very careful Kluivert when dealing directly with any Irish bank! (BTW I am an ex bank official!!!)
I laughed when you said that they were offering a better/larger/different deal than through the broker. I am assuming that they were giving the green light to a larger loan size than that discussed with the broker- this essentially could be the case, however had the bank looked at any of your financial information? It is impossible for any broker or bank to give you REAL or MEANINGFUL information without throughly reviewing your finances. Even when they issue "an approval in principle" it still may not be worth the paper it is written on depending on the conditions attached.
I always smile to myself when I see a bank advertising "Loan Approval in 24hrs!". The loan approval they mean is "Approval in Principle" which will state that it cannot be relied upon for signing of contracts or bidding at an auction.
Anyone who thinks they can "ring around" or "look over" the deals offered by the banks themselves & choose the best deal-
can they tell me why many of the banks have a "new business" & "existing business" rate schedules for pricing loans?
Picking out the best rate is easy as long as you can read & count- but can you pick out the best value?
For example as an earlier poster pointed out NIB do have the best tracker rate on low LTV mortgages at present, but how competitive are their fixed rate schedules? You may save 0.1% by going to them on a tracker rate, but if rates continue to increase & you want to fix at any stage, their fixed rate pricing is way off when compared with AIB for example. This short term gain with NIB could result in a long term loss as your mortgage is most likely for 20 years plus & a tracker rate is priced in only todays terms.
Get yourself a good quality broker, preferably an authorised advisor rather than a multi agency intermediary, and even check them out with The Financial Regulator. There is a list of mortgage brokers on their site which also lists the companies with whom they deal, and then meet as many as you have to until you can build a trusting relationship with one individual.
Having worked in the banking sector, anyone who thinks that they can "beat" the system by reviewing the banks products themselves (unless they are extremely financially aware & qualified) is kidding themselves. The banks are some of the most profitable companies in operation in this country. Why? Because they have employees called "advisors" that really should be called "salespeople"- the only advice they will give you is to buy their products. With all the scandals of the past few years how any normal (I am counting all people who have never worked for a bank as normal!) person could feel trusting enough to walk into any financial institution for financial advice is beyond me. But hey then again they have spent millions in advertising to convince us otherwise.
Best of luck in any event.