Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

We are talking about the interdepartmental mortgage arrears working group. Therefore, one would have expected to see Departments represented on it, but the AIB, the EBS and the Central Bank were all included. Essentially, this skewed it in a particular direction. It should have involved Departments plus the banks and the people who are the victims in all of this. Does the Minister agree that the report is much less satisfactory as a consequence of not having that balance and not including organisations such as MABS and New Beginnings?

I am confused about what the Minister intends to do with the interlocutors. Timing appears to be very important in terms of when, for example, the new bankruptcy or insolvency laws will be introduced. The report states on page 17:

The State currently has no infrastructure or resources in place to run a non-judicial debt settlement process. This is likely to be very complex and take time to implement.

Is it intended to put in place such a system? I am not at all clear on what is intended. It is one thing to think about solutions and another to think about how they will be practically implemented. In the absence of having a mechanism in place, is this issue being worked on? If so, will it require legislation? Are there practical arrangements in hiring people? Are there institutional arrangements that need to be made? This raises questions, but it does not give us a very good insight into possible solutions because, without such a mechanism, I cannot see how whatever solutions are arrived at can be rolled out in a way that would give certainty. That is the primary issue I would like to have addressed.

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