Ms Julie Sadlier:

As part of our submission, we are asking for more detailed consideration of those numbers because we see them in huge numbers. The number of people we see who are not earning any money or are on a jobseeker's payment is huge. Information provide by MABS today seems to back that up. What we do not see at an official level is an analysis that shows these numbers because, realistically, these people are not going to be able to pay off the huge loans they incurred. Many of them are in the older age profile so they do not have the longevity of mortgage repayment time or the opportunity to get another job. Again, MABS figures back that up. Many of them are people who worked in the construction industry, have not been re-employed in the past eight to ten years and are not likely to be re-employed because they are getting older. No consideration has been given to this issue and we are all dancing around the problem as if they are all going to dig money out of somewhere and have hidden stashes, are going to get jobs again or all their houses are going to increase in value, but it is not happening. We are many years into this. We talk about more than 300 resolutions in one organisation and less than 50% in the statistic we see. We are very concerned about the growing number of people who are going into repossession and we do not see a solution for them.