Mr. Paul Joyce:

With the hire purchase issue, one is entitled to a hire purchase in writing and in full. Sometimes it is not provided but as I mentioned, the area is not being properly policed by the Central Bank.

However, the lender is not obliged to do the proper due diligence on the borrower's income, other credit agreements, capacity to service the agreement and so on.

During the boom hire service was a major source of over-indebtedness and they are quite technical agreements. For a start, the person does not own the vehicle until he or she makes the final payment, which many people did not understand. Some people sold on vehicles with disastrous consequences. It is an area where the maximum information and protection is necessary. Given that the entities are not regulated, even some garages have started to go on solo runs and do their own HP because they have seen the possibility of doing so. Normally they were credit intermediaries acting for institutions.

We have raised this. We have had meetings with representatives of the Central Bank and had meetings in the Department of Finance. Nobody is saying it is a bad idea to regulate them. It just seems to take a huge amount of time to get around to doing what people seem to accept should be done. The technical explanation is that hire purchase is not credit, according to the Central Bank. Of course it is credit because people are paying in instalments usually over 60 months with an interest payment. It is a rental so it is a bit of a subtle distinction, but it is not a distinction that stands up in practical terms.

Our feeling is that when something needs to be remedied quickly and it is of consequence for financial institutions, it tends to be done. When it is a consumer issue, it tends to take a long time. Nobody has come back and said there is a good reason for not doing this, but it still has not happened.

Was Deputy Kitt's question on life assurance related to mortgages or just life assurance policies generally?