Sinn Fein has hit out after it was revealed that the majority of victims affected by the tracker mortgage scandal will not be reimbursed until next year.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told the party that Ulster Bank will not pay back 2,500 victims until sometime in 2018 due to an "IT problem", KBC have not even identified the number of customers affected and that hundreds of AIB customers won't be compensated until 2019.

Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD accused the Minister of failing to stand up to the banks.

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Teachta Doherty said: "This is not a complicated issue. The banks know who they have taken this money from, they know how much they owe their victims and they have the money in their reserves to do this.

"When we consider Minister Darcy's confirmation that there will be 7,000 more victims in December, that means that the majority of victims will not be reimbursed and compensated until at least next year. That is simply unacceptable.

"Minister Donohue's statement also fails to mention the issues of compensation levels and the rates that the victims will be on after this whole debacle.

"The big issue he fails to deal with is individual accountability. When will we see individual bankers held accountable for their actions. This was by far the single biggest robbery in the history of this state and there are no signs of arrests being made.

"If we do tackle this issue head on then today’s tracker mortgage scandal will be another banking scandal in the future as these bankers will not fear the repercussions of their actions."

(CD/MH)