Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I refer to individual mortgages, not portfolios. People were caught in an impossible situation at the height of the boom, with what are now unsustainable monthly payments because jobs have been lost. Why could IBRC, as a State-owned bank, not come up with a revolutionary approach? The solution is simple and involves reducing the value of the home to the current market value and reducing the monthly payment to the equivalent of that. It would make the loan sustainable for the vast majority of people who are now in difficulty. IBRC would then be leading the way for what would happen generally. Instead of the massive amount of money going to the banks, through huge suffering from people in these difficulties, money would be released into the real economy, which may help to overcome the disaster of austerity. Would the IBRC consider something like that?