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

I shall go through the issues. One of the points that the Minister for Finance made was that a lot of mortgages were simply rolled into very deep loan books, which made it impossible to determine individual experiences when trying to outwork a mortgage. I suggested that a barcode be put on each mortgage, which is done in the United States. Such an initiative would allow for rolled-up mortgages to be individually identified for the purpose of management.

Another point I made was that transparency leads to proper management. I am reminded of the old saying that one cannot manage if one cannot measure. Transparency leads to accountability. Last Monday I was with KPMG, where we looked at the Siteserv share register and all the different entries. I discovered that most of the share transactions that happened at the peak, before the firm was sold, were in the names of brokerage firms. Therefore, I could not see who the owners of the shares were. I presumed that KPMG could do so, given that it is carrying out the review, but KPMG told me that it could not see through the list either. Therefore, KPMG must review a system that is not transparent and, thus, will be unable to find out the identity of the individuals behind the share transactions. Obviously that situation puts the Government on the back foot in terms of getting to the bottom of what happened. As Deputy Fleming mentioned a few minutes ago, the motion would allow for greater transparency, which would put the Government in the driving seat in the future.

There is a hierarchy of priorities. On one side, there is the importance of facilitating families in staying in their own homes. However, vulture funds operate in a blind spot and away from families and the State.