Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The Government need not begin by implementing the Sinn Féin proposals but it should implement what it has committed to in the programme for Government, but we are not getting that. I remind the Minister that he has made the following commitments: to increase mortgage interest relief to 30% for first time buyers from 2004 to 2008; to introduce a two-year moratorium on the repossession of modest family homes where a family makes an honest effort to pay the mortgage; to fast-track personal bankruptcy reform; to convert the Money Advice and Budgeting Service to a strengthened personal debt management agency with strong legal powers; and to make greater use of mortgage interest supplement to support families who cannot meet their mortgage payments. This is not what we are getting, but why has no action been taken to implement any of these commitments, to which the Minister is a signatory?

Do the Members opposite realise the scale of the crisis? They must; they cannot be inured from that reality in their respective constituencies.

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