Mr. John Moran:

With respect to the people who have a problem with their current mortgages and are not able to pay their mortgages, it is not a happy situation. What is required is that the banks engage with those people and that those people engage with their banks. We have seen the Central Bank explain that 70% or 75% of the people, who are currently going through the MARP, describe it as satisfactory. We also have a large group of people who are not engaging with their banks at the moment, today, and they need to engage. It is only by working between those people, the regulator and the banks that we will finally get to a situation which produces a better resolution for everybody. In some cases that will require people, who are living in houses that are much larger than they are capable of supporting with their income, to in fact potentially trade down from that house or move to rented accommodation, but that is not necessarily, as the Deputy describes it, a grim situation. That is a recognition of their financial position and a resolution because ultimately it is the other people in the country who are paying for those people to remain in those houses as long as they are not paying their mortgages. If they are able to pay the mortgage and if the mortgage that they can support is at least equal to the value of the house in which they are living today so they are paying their mortgage like their neighbours, then in that scenario the bank needs to also resolve any portion of the historical debt that is unsustainable for those people.