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

It is a Government policy anyway. For my last question, I will return to the matter of mortgages for owner-occupiers, not buy-to-let investors or speculators or all the rest of it. Mr. Duffy has set his face quite categorically against what he calls debt forgiveness. What will be his approach to the provisions of the Personal Insolvency Bill when it is enacted?

Second, in his earlier response, Mr. Duffy stated he would not magically wave away negative equity. I put it to Mr. Duffy and to Mr. Murphy that this is a moral issue, in that there was a young generation of Irish workers who, during the bubble, were blackmailed due to the grip financial speculators and developers had on the housing market. If such people wanted a home for a family or whatever, they had no option but to go for the extortionate prices, the 40-year mortgages and all the rest of it. That generation is now stranded, and I put it to the witnesses that there is a moral issue in this regard. While it pertains to society and not simply to the bank, as an important player therein, does the bank not have a moral responsibility to try to unwind this injustice that was done? I put it to the witnesses that there would be huge merit in having an across-the-board scheme of reducing the crazy prices for which homes were bought down to the current value and calibrating the monthly payments downwards accordingly.

That would relieve enormous stress and it would also perhaps release some billions of euro into the domestic economy to try to revive it. So why does Mr. Duffy not entertain that idea more seriously by discussing it and putting it on the agenda?