Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We could, of course, have a major debate about the issue of rent certainty or rent control, but that might be for another day. Somebody mentioned Irish Nationwide Building Society. In a previous life I practised law and when I first started doing conveyancing as a solicitor, dealing with banks and building societies was a very different scenario from how it was subsequently in the latter part of the 1990s and into the 2000s. Somebody virtually had to have their communion money with a building society for 15 or 20 years in order to be able to make an application for a loan. Deputy Mathews made the point that life did not begin and end in 1995 or 1996. There was an entirely different banking system back then that was far from throwing money at people. One practically had to take a secret vow down in some hidden chamber in order to be able to access finance.

One of the issues about mortgage insurance was that there was a product, not exactly the same kind of product as we have been discussing, on the market in those days. It was aimed at people who did not have a permanent and pensionable job but were on a contract with, say, for the sake of argument, RTE - a job most of us would regard as reasonably good but that did not hit all the buttons of permanent, pensionable, guaranteed for life and so on - and it was a type of insurance people could take out on their incomes. The point was raised that people now have very insecure positions. Many people are on contract employment and are not in full-time permanent and pensionable jobs. Is that going to be a major issue for us when we start talking about lending? Is there room for a product that can get people over the hump of not having the permanent and pensionable job to some extent?