Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)

We must be real and acknowledge this, so where the State is unwilling to provide social housing for people, they must be enabled to retain their homes where possible. The State facilitated their entry into over-indebtedness and unemployment. The State now has a responsibility to facilitate their exit from it. This Bill would have the effect of allowing the court to consider all of these factors when a repossession application is being heard. This will not have any impact on the personal insolvency legislation once it is introduced. Publishing the scheme of the Bill was an important step in the move towards publishing legislation on personal insolvency, which is long overdue. The large personal debt of many is due to not being able to service the mortgage on the family home, so we hope that this will be one part of a range of measures designed to address these issues.

I call upon the Minister to take on board the concerns of members of the public and civil society bodies working in this area. It is absolutely essential that we adhere to the timeframe indicated by the Minister. We cannot continue to put off addressing the problems of those who cannot meet their mortgage commitments and who are facing mountains of debt.

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