Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 3, to delete lines 19 to 25 and substitute the following:“(c) by substituting the following definition for the definition of “retail credit firm”:

“ ‘retail credit firm’ means a person prescribed for the purpose of paragraph (g) of other person who holds itself out as carrying on a business of, and whose business consists wholly or partly of, providing credit directly to relevant persons or owning such credit or both, but does not include—

(a) a person who is a regulated financial service provider authorised by the Bank or another EEA regulator to provide or own credit otherwise than under this Part, or

(b) a person who is an authorised credit intermediary under Part XI of the Consumer Credit Act 1995 when carrying on the activity of a credit intermediary, or

(c) a person who provides credit on a once only or occasional basis, but only if the provision of the credit does not involve a representation, or create an impression (whether in advertising, marketing or otherwise), that the credit would be offered to other persons on the same or substantially similar terms, or

(d) a person who is exempted, or who belongs to a class of persons that is exempted, under section 29A from being required to hold an authorisation as a retail credit firm;”.”.

There is a difficulty for many people who find themselves in a position where their mortgage holder is no longer regulated. A total of 18,000 people fall into this group, approximately 13,000 of whom are with the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC. The stories I, as an elected representative, hear about their experiences are amazing. The danger is that the process has opened the door to firms which seek to profit strip from the crisis, having received reductions or write-downs on the size of mortgages. For example, they may have bought mortgages at 60% of face value and, therefore, see an opportunity to sell houses as soon as possible to realise a profit. The system has created a commercial opportunity that works against the interests of citizens whom we are here to represent and protect.

I know one individual who is in Leinster House today, who was a couple of days behind in his mortgage repayments and who received a letter from the mortgage provider which was outside the system of regulation for repossession. That shows that these guys were jumping at the opportunity to repossess. I know another individual who bought a house and was €2,000 in arrears for four months and whose house was forcibly sold. When it was sold, he was left with a debt of €80,000. That is a shocking and disgusting thing for any bank to visit on someone.

We also know that when citizens try to engage with these unregulated vulture funds, they deal with an opaque system. There are mortgage holders who receive letters from a company called Acenden in Sweden about particular mortgages. When they go back to the company, they think they are dealing with, Mars, for example, which knows nothing about Acenden and operates through a PO box number. When the individual writes to Mars, it takes a long time to obtain the information. There are no telephone numbers for these companies. Individuals receive statements with no opening balances, just the details for the year involved. If they look for information on their 2014 statements half way through 2015, that detail cannot be provided. They make payments to central accounts that have no reference codes and cannot obtain a digital receipt or information from the firm involved. We have a Wild West system of deregulation for a significant cohort of individuals. In the main, their situation is the result of a Government decision. I spoke to one of them today who told me he would have more rights if he bought a toaster than he has in the case of his mortgage.

We hoped the Government’s response to the crisis would be to fulfil and safeguard the rights of citizens as much as possible and we cannot understand why this has not been achieved. The Minister will recognise the paragraph in my amendment because it is taken from the original document. It seeks to regulate all players operating in the mortgage system. There should be no separation or difference between owners and service providers. It should include those who own the credit, too. It is a legally complex issue, but, first and foremost, the objective of any Government should be to ensure the people concerned are fully protected. I, therefore, appeal to the Minister to return to the track he was on initially to ensure full protection.