Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Minister's point about giving information on the code of conduct on mortgage arrears and that the right to go to the Financial Services Ombudsman is effectively unchanged. However, the core issue of this amendment is the value of the loan sold at a discount. The Minister again drew the comparison with NAMA. The write-downs in respect of the loans transferred from AIB, Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank to NAMA were widely published. It was known that some sites were sold without planning permission and that, in such cases, there was a 90% write-down whereas other, performing, loans with only a couple of years to go were bought with very little write-down. People were able to work out the approximate discount but NAMA is happy if it gets back its booking price.

The Minister said he saw little benefit in giving people information as to their value of their mortgage. People are entitled to know that. If one of these service providers, on behalf of the owner who may be outside the jurisdiction and may not be regulated because somebody else is hired to do the dirty work locally, goes to court for a mortgage of €200,000 it would be useful for the judge to know that they were trying to evict people who owe €200,000 when only €100,000 was actually paid for that mortgage. The buyers felt the mortgage was only worth €100,000 because they knew it was distressed, even though it had an outstanding payment of €200,000. It would be very useful for people to know that they were being put out of their house for amounts far in excess of what the owner of the mortgage paid for it. This is the inequity in the system and it is essentially why people are still sore. They are being pursued for the last drop of blood by companies which will make a financial killing by getting them out of the house.

The citizen has to come into this situation. We are talking about the nuclear situation where people's homes are being repossessed in the courts. They have gone through the code of conduct and the Financial Services Ombudsman. It is not irrelevant for people to know, when they are being put out of their house, what the owner of their mortgage actually paid for it. There is an issue of fairness to the citizen which the Minister is not addressing because he is dismissing this amendment.