Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This issue has been well thrashed out in recent weeks and months. I accept the Minister's statement that he will progress his own piece of legislation to deal with the issue. However, I take issue with him on one statement he made during Leaders' Questions last week when he said that nobody who currently finds himself or herself in this situation has raised any issue about dealing with one of the funds not currently regulated by the Central Bank and who is not legally under the CCMA. I do not believe that to be true. Only yesterday a mortgage-holder contacted me who is a customer of a foreign-owned bank which has left this jurisdiction and the mortgage is now being held by an affiliate of a US fund. That mortgage-holder is adamant that the code is not being complied with. I cannot vouch for the fact in that case but the problem is that nobody can adjudicate on it and that is the issue I have consistently raised with the Minister on previous occasions. If that mortgage-holder believes that the new mortgage institution is not complying with the code of conduct, he cannot go to anyone to vindicate his rights; nobody can adjudicate as to whether the new mortgage institution is complying with the code. This is the fundamental problem.

The bottom line is that thousands of mortgage-holders have been left vulnerable. It might never come to pass and I hope that none of them experiences problems with non-compliance with the code of conduct - God forbid - because the truth is that if they experience any non-compliance with the code there is nothing they can do about it. The Central Bank will not want to hear of it, the Department will not want to become involved. The problem is that nobody is legally mandated to become involved.

When does the Minister expect the Government Bill to be brought forward? I am aware that the Central Bank is being consulted. The Bill is listed as due for publication in 2015. This is not good enough. I ask the Minister if the Government will prioritise this legislation to protect all the mortgage-holders affected, those mortgages taken out before the IBRC case came to public prominence, the IBRC mortgage-holders and potentially some ICS mortgage-holders who could find themselves in that situation and whom the Minister must acknowledge are potentially vulnerable. Will the Bill be brought forward before next year so that we can all devote time to it and get it right? I accept it is complicated but I believe that with collective cross-party political will we should be able to legislate to deal with this issue effectively.