Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will do my best. I welcome the representatives from the three groups before us. The purpose of this engagement is for us to sharpen our questions to be put to representatives of the banks next week. Last September, I found it a very frustrating experience not having an agreed template for information, with much data presented on the day. We were bombarded with information and had to try to interpret it there and then. Trying to get questions answered was like chasing a shadow but I hope next week's experience will be far more productive. As a committee we have learned to refine and improve our approach.

I will quickly come to the questions. However bad a position is now with mortgage arrears - it continues to be an extremely serious national crisis - the elephant in the room is the historically low interest rates that we still have and how they relate to tracker mortgages in particular. The European Central Bank base rate is 0.25%, which may reduce slightly but will eventually, as night follows day, begin to rise again. We could potentially be sitting on an even more serious time bomb in that respect if tracker interest rates go up in line with the ECB rate. Variable rates did not come down in line with the ECB rate but banks could use the excuse of the rate increasing to hike standard variable rates again. I am laying down that marker as I have a serious concern in that respect. Many people are just scraping by now and if rates increase by a 0.5% or 1% over a period, they will really struggle and more people could go into arrears.

I acknowledge the great work being done by all the organisations today to help mortgage holders. Statistics have indicated that 325 deals have been done with AIB alone since the alliance last November, and many of those have involved an element of mortgage write-off. The profile of solutions being achieved by Mr. Hall's organisation for clients seems to be different from the overall profile of restructuring solutions put in place by the Central Bank.