Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the groups present. I have three years' worth of evidence that the Government has abandoned distressed mortgage holders. The groups before the committee and those who will appear before us later are trying to do their best to fill a gap. In the Chamber today the Taoiseach rubbished the idea that there could possibly be one repossession a day when, in fact, there are several, as we all know. We have a Government that is both in denial and delusional. The Irish Nationwide Building Society mortgage book has been sold to two distressed asset firms from the United States. The Minister for Finance said that was a "hugely successful" outcome for the special liquidator. As long as we define screwing Irish families for the profit of foreign vulture funds as "hugely successful", I would agree with him. He said he was extremely pleased with the progress made, but tens of thousands of Irish men and women were not allowed to bid for their own mortgages which were sold at a discount.

There are three issues for me - quality, quantity and consistency . The Government is pushing on the quantity issue by setting targets, while completely ignoring the quality of the measures taken and their inconsistency. I ask the delegates to talk a little more about the inconsistencies.

Deputy McGrath has already raised this, but I have a major problem with it as well. In other words, Bank of Ireland will screw a customer, whereas AIB will not. If one banks with Bank of Ireland and is a customer in trouble - tough. The customer's life will be destroyed by Richie Boucher and his henchmen.