ECB rate cuts won't be fast enough for 70,000 Irish households on fixed-rate mortgages

Senior mortgage broker Michael Dowling said: 'When ECB rates went up, not all of the increases were passed on by the banks. By the same logic, the full decreases will not be passed on.'

Remarks of Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, will be scrutinised on Thursday for any hints of just when the ECB is minded to start cutting rates.

Both main Irish banks predict the European Central Bank (ECB) will start cutting interest rates in the coming months, but reductions in official interest rates will unlikely be fast enough to prevent 70,000 households, whose fixed-rate loans expire this year, from paying more.   

AIB chief executive Colin Hunt predicted on Wednesday the ECB will start cutting at its June meeting, and will have reduced its key deposit rates currently at 4% to 2.75% by the end of the year. His counterpart at Bank of Ireland, Myles O'Grady last month predicted something of the same outlook, but with the ECB possibly starting to cut a month earlier.