Mr. Brendan Burgess:

There is a problem of poverty in the country. In most cases where mortgage repayments are unsustainable, those repayments are a lot lower than would be paid in rent if an equivalent property were rented, especially in the case of a cheap tracker mortgage. We are sometimes asking the bank to solve the problem of the person’s poverty when the bigger problem might be a lack of income.

Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out that it costs €42,000 per annum to house someone. On the basis of my definition of a sustainable mortgage, one should bear in mind the cost to the taxpayer. We dismantled the mortgage-----