Fianna Fáil is warning that until individual bankers are held directly responsible for the tracker mortgage scandal nothing will change.

Six institutions are facing the prospect of multi-million Euro fines after 38,000 mortgage holders were wrongly moved onto a higher interest rate.

A Central Bank investigation into the scandal is expected to be complete by next year.

It is understood the investigation may throw up more affected customers.

Fianna Fáil finance spokesperson Michael McGrath said the fines will have little effect if no-one is held personally accountable for their actions.

“We need to see accountability right up to the level of individuals if they were directly involved in making conscious decisions to deny customers their contractual rights,” he said.

“Until people are held directly accountable, this will just happen again and again and we will all end up paying the price.”

Fines

He warned that the banks must prevented from passing the fines on to their customers.

“The fines can potentially be very significant,” he said.

“For any breach that occurs after 2013, the fine can be up to 10% of turnover of the bank so that is potentially a huge fine.

“My own personal view is that fines are all well and good – the banks will pay the fines but they will find a way of passing on the cost of the fines to the rest of us.”

Details

Meanwhile, financial advisor Padraic Kissane told Newstalk that the details of the report will likely prove far more significant than any fines doled out.

“I am not certain that putting a fine of €20m, €30m, €40m – whatever the figure collectively comes together – is relevant here,” he said.

“I think what is more relevant is really the report that will state how, why, who and when it happened.

“That is what people want to read.”

Prosecutions

It comes after the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he would not rule out the possibility of individual bankers being prosecuted over the scandal.

"I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility that there could be prosecutions - but again, Government isn't responsible for prosecuting people.

"But there have been a number of prosecutions of bankers and bank officials in the last couple of years, so I wouldn't rule that out."

Impact

Earlier, the Transport Minister Shane Ross told The Pat Kenny Show that he does not believe the fines will have any impact on the banks.

He told Jonathan Healy that is too easy for banks to write cheques with other people’s money.

He warned that the only body to suffer through the fines will the State – which owns large portions of some of them following the financial crash.

“They just write a cheque and they got on with their business,” he said.

"And in fact, nobody's personally held accountable and it's a very easy thing to write a cheque with other people's money.

He said banks are “totally unable to feel pain and unable to feel conscience.”

“The same people are in charge of some of the banks that were there in the time of the crash and in similar positions,” he said.

"We haven't actually sorted this problem out - it's not a satisfactory solution - a fine should be imposed and there'll be no personal pain or accountability."

The banks are facing penalties of up to €10m or 10% of turnover. Individuals could be liable for penalties of up to €1m each.