Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for Justice and Equality for bringing forward this legislation. I realise it is at the request of the troika because it is part of the recovery programme. Ireland, which I love, became insolvent. For the past four years it has struggled on a life-support machine. Deputy Arthur Spring stated the banks were the engine, but they were also the main contributors, owing to lax or there being no supervision, and the conduits of the financial tsunami that caused great destruction. They have been brought through the life-support process into something of a zombie existence, but their customers remain under the cosh. Today one of the banking institutions, not one of the two large banks but Permanent TSB, came to explain its position and how it was trying to create a live bank from the carcass. Recently the Minister for Finance suggested he did not know what to believe when it came to being briefed by and getting reports from the banks. That is the truth of the matter. Despite this, the legislation expects that the customers of banks will do everything under the three alternatives in terms of a full confession, written and oral, of the full extent of their assets and liabilities. Regardless of this, even today, we do not know the position of the banks. Am I not right? We have asked about their income, provisions and categorisation of their assets, but it is still fuzzy. This is not on.

I thank those involved in the MABS because they have been on the battlefield, mostly at the lower levels of debt. Every week at least five constituents come to me with detailed stories of their positions. The financial slavery ahead of them is abhorrent and appalling. It is wrong that they cannot engage with lenders. We hear the phrase "the banks will engage", but the are not doing so. They are directing their customers and pushing them around like slaves on tea trolleys, which is wrong. We need to consider the fundamental road to well-being and the recovery of the country at every level. This applies not only at the lower or middle levels of income but also at the top. This society from top to bottom is having a financial nervous breakdown. We are on the right road and pointed in the right direction with the Personal Insolvency Bill. I congratulate those responsible in the Department where there is so much happening. The staff should be thanked for their long hours of work and diligence. At the same time, there is no point in facing in the right direction if one can never reach the destination. That is my concern. We must look at this Bill, and not be afraid to shorten the timescale of bankruptcy in the larger cases and to be rigorous about those who carry out the negotiation and the intermediation between lenders and borrowers. I would also make it much more imperative that the main creditors, especially secured creditors, are brought to heel in this because they acknowledged today that the ten years leading up to the collapse were of their own architecture and execution. It is all wrong to think that the borrowers and counter parties of that situation should be enslaved for the next number of years and we must do something about it.

See this speech in context