Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to say "thank you" to our guests on my own behalf for the work they do and the representations they make on behalf of people who are in very vulnerable situations. The people with whom I deal in my office genuinely appreciate it because they felt that before the advent of organisations like those of our guests they did not have anywhere else to go, and that is a reflection on policy.

I have two questions for our guests and in this respect I am only being nosey. Regarding the onslaught of repossessions that potentially may come, at what point in their experience are repossessions happening? In some instances I am led to believe by media commentators that it might be only a couple of months after a borrower has fallen into arrears, and because there is no appeals process or no transparency, there is no real evidence of anyone from a banking perspective really engaging. I know the anecdotal evidence is that they can do and say what they like and in may cases perhaps they do, but I would be concerned if we were genuinely expected to believe that a person, a number of months after falling into arrears or not being in a position to sustain some sort of acceptable payment, could face a repossession order. What is the least time, in practice, a banking body would instigate repossession when a person has stopped making repayments?

I ask the witnesses to please excuse my ignorance. Reference was made to the fact that we need the stick, as is the case in the UK, that has developed in practice over a number of years, of having a shorter, more effective bankruptcy route, and that people do not use it because they do not really want that option and they use the normal insolvency process that we have established in recent months. We do not have the same practice yet - first, because the process is not in place for long enough, but second, because we do not have the equivalent stick to use with the banks. How effective is the stick when in most cases people in bankruptcy have lost everything? I accept that the witnesses have said people are not losing their houses but in most cases the people I know have lost everything. People who have gone to the UK have gone through the process in a shorter space of time and they can come back and rebuild again, which thankfully in many cases they do. However, in most cases people do lose their family home. Even if the stick was introduced tomorrow it seems that people have to lose everything in order to start again. The vast majority of people with whom I am dealing do not want to lose everything. I do not want them to lose everything. We want to keep people in the family home. From the limited knowledge I have I believe there are ways of doing that. Could the witnesses explain to me what I am missing? What gap or bridge would such a stick offer in terms of what is currently missing?