Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion

1:35 pm

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

When the bank's chief executive was before the joint committee, it was set out that this year 34,000 mortgages are subject to forbearance, of which 66% are interest only. That is the huge suffering. Those people are in essence slaves to the banks. Have the public interest representatives considered or discussed with the board a different approach rather than to torture families and individual home owners?

I am speaking of a more general write-down of mortgage debt for single-owner occupiers rather than multiples to reflect the values today of those properties and, therefore, a calibrating downwards of the monthly payments which, on the one hand, would ease unconscionable pressure on people and, on the other, free up hundreds of millions, perhaps of billions, of euro a year, thus allowing the real economy to develop and more jobs to be created as that money would be spent in shops and on services. Has this issue been discussed or bought to the attention of the board?

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