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

The bank has issued what I would describe as hard-line press statements with regard to the question of debt forgiveness. I have raised this issue with the other banks. Given the disaster inflicted on ordinary home owners - I am not referring to those who bought a string of properties for speculative purposes - and the young working people in their 20s and 30s who are now obliged to pay massive amounts because of the rampant profiteering in Irish property, is it not reasonable to expect the banks, along with the Government and the European financial system, to agree a policy of general write-down of the capital value in each over-priced home to today's value and thereby calibrate downwards the monthly repayments on those properties? Is that not the ideal and proper solution for those who are in desperate straits at present?