Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In regard to court proceedings, we saw from the figures presented by the financial institutions that Permanent TSB was probably the bank that used legal proceedings least. Half of some of the other banks' proposals involved legal proceedings or assisted voluntary sales. These figures referred to quarter four. However, Permanent TSB has now provided us with the figures for quarter one of 2014 and these indicate that it has now almost caught up with the rest of the banks. I want to follow up on this now.

Let us forget about the letters advising of legal proceedings and look at court proceedings initiated. In the most recent quarter, quarter one of this year, Permanent TSB has initiated 2,000 court proceedings in regard to family homes and buy-to-lets, the majority, 1,500 related to family homes. This equates to approximately 154 court proceedings initiated to repossess homes per week. Do the witnesses feel this is an appropriate figure? How many of these homes do they believe will be repossessed and why have they ramped up legal actions and repossessions in the last quarter?