Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government parties had an opportunity to address the serious issue of family home repossessions when they introduced the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill in the spring of 2013. They were warned by the Opposition Deputies about what was eventually enacted, which was described as a missed opportunity to rebalance the debt resolution process to provide equality of arms between debtors and creditors. My colleague, Deputy Billy Kelleher, specifically predicted that when families in arrears with their mortgages found their homes appreciating in value to the point where they were out on negative equity, they would then face the full onslaught of the banks seeking to repossess their homes. I will borrow the words of Deputy Kelleher:

My concern is that banks will cherry-pick those houses where there is some equity or value, even though people are in massive mortgage arrears. There are properties whose values have halved and whose owners are in very difficult circumstances and are incapable of making any meaningful repayment. ... The Minister knows as well as I do that in every banking institution in the State, there are those who were previously flogging mortgages and selling credit cards, personal loans, holiday loans and car loans. They are all members of the nutting squad now, bringing people in to talk to the banks. The bottom line is that they want to get their pound of flesh now and there should be oversight in this area. With the best will in the world, this is flawed legislation from start to finish. Whatever happens between now and the passing of the Bill, the Minister will have to at least listen to our suggestions. The Minister [it was then Deputy Alan Shatter] visited Meath East during the by-election and no doubt met some of the staggering number of people who are shattered and who do not see any light at the end of the tunnel. People in those circumstances have almost written off their own hopes and aspirations, but their main concern is no longer their own hope; it is hope for their children.

This is devastating the lives of people and, as Deputy Kelleher pointed out, the lives of people, their hopes and aspirations are now dependent on banks deciding what was a reasonable offer for a borrower. Deputy Kelleher put his finger on the central problem with the debt resolution process, namely, the failure of the Government to remove the veto power of banks over the process of debt resolution. By doing so, the Government left the banks, the very people who had lent recklessly in the first place, holding the whip hand over families in a distressed situation.

As with much else, this Government did not see families as individuals struggling or suffering, did not see that they could become homeless, that the elderly living with dignity in their community could be lying on a trolley in an accident and emergency unit tonight. It did not see that these people had rights. They were all people in society going through difficult circumstances but they were going to have their homes repossessed. The Government parties could see only pounds, shillings and pence and the cost to individuals was lost in that legislation.

In response to warnings from the Opposition benches that families would face repossessions, the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter stated:

We cannot sustain an ongoing lack of certainty with regard to the legal position on mortgages. We cannot sustain a situation in which, on the one hand, banks are expected to lend money by way of mortgages and, on the other hand, there is lack of certainty about the exercise of their legal rights when it comes to major default by a borrower. It is simply an unsustainable legal position to maintain.

I have stated on a number of occasions that repossession of family homes is intended to be a last resort.

This is dry legalise stripped of any sense of social good or the necessity to have equality and equity in the right to have a house in this country. Deputy Shatter went on to specifically deny that there would be an opening of the floodgates with respect to family home repossessions. He was not alone. In contributions on the Bill on 1 May 2013, Deputy Joanna Tuffy responded to claims of widespread repossessions when she stated, "There has been considerable scaremongering about the Bill, some of which is opportunist, populist and disingenuous. All of the Opposition speakers I have heard in the past hour and 35 minutes I have been here have been guilty of that". Deputy Michael McNamara stated, "I do not accept there is a rush by banks to repossess."

We are standing here today debating the reality, where more than 15% of mortgage accounts for family homes are now in arrears - that is 117,000 dwelling houses - and almost 60,000 of those are in arrears of more than one year. Since the Government came into office, the numbers in arrears by more than 180 days has more than doubled to 74,000 in less than four years. The mortgage arrears crisis is now ingrained in our economy, with more than 30% of accounts more than 720 days in arrears. At the last count, almost 1,400 residential properties were repossessed by banks, more than double the figure in December 2010.

The Sunday Independentrecently described how repossessions through the Circuit Court were achieving an unstoppable momentum, as the banks move to seize and get their hands on the positive equity of those properties.

More worryingly, the number of repossession cases before the courts may only be the tip of the iceberg. Recent figures from the Department of Finance show that for every family home repossessed, at least three others were voluntarily surrendered to the banks.

What we are trying to achieve by means of the motion is to encourage the Government to recognise the scale of the problem. The former Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, was only concerned with attacking Fianna Fáil. When commenting on this matter, he stated the Government, which has now been in power for four years, would not obsess about this issue and that the shape society would take in the future would not be decided in these Houses. The Government has been asleep at the wheel in this matter. There are two crises, namely, the increasing level of homelessness and the growing number of family homes being repossessed. These crises are interlinked and we are now on the cusp of a what can be described as a societal crisis. This will have consequences for the next 30 years in the context of people's mental health, the level of homelessness and childhood deprivation and the consequent poor educational and health outcomes.

I appeal to the Minister and those on the Government benches to listen and pay heed to what we are proposing and listen to struggling families and individuals who need support. Those to whom I refer elected those in government to serve in these Houses and are depending on them to restore some order in how we control the debt resolution process. We must remove the whip from the hands of those in the banks. The Minister can achieve this by accepting the Bill.

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