Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Governor. He is the last of the witnesses to come before us in this series of meetings. When we held the first of those meetings last year, at which the Governor was present, there were no targets in place. On the next occasion on which we met him, such targets had been notified to the banks. In the interim, we have been examining how those targets are being met. The initial approach to the crisis in mortgage arrears was to offer everyone affected interest-only repayment arrangements. This was very much a wait-and-see approach. The next step in the process involved the Keane report, which prescribed a number of options, and the most recent developments relate to the changes to the bankruptcy laws and the establishment of the Insolvency Service of Ireland. I do not believe that those charged with compiling the Keane report were expected to come up with all of the necessary prescribed solutions or that there should be no other solutions outside of these. As the various problems are worked out, we would like other resolution processes to be put in place. This has happened in some cases. Ulster Bank has, for example, put discretionary mortgages and other mechanisms in place.

An obvious solution appears to be popping up at present. Is it correct that Professor Honohan's definition of a sustainable mortgage is one which is dealt with either by being cleared in its entirety or on foot of the property being surrendered and the legacy debt disposed of within the working life of the homeowner?