Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of specific questions and will do my best to be succinct. I apologise that I may not be able to remain to hear the Minister of State's response, but I will read them afterwards in the Official Report.

I applaud the role of the Government in bringing about a situation where the country is now in a wonderful situation economically, where our debt-to-GDP ratio has improved considerably, our public finances are under control and significant employment is being created. This is a huge achievement economically. This leads us to recommendation No. 4, that we should deal with the issue of arrears and mortgages. This is the last leg of the programme. We have achieved a lot with establishing the pillar banks and getting people back to work, but dealing with the residual debt of arrears and mortgages is the last leg in recreating a normal functioning society and economy. This is crucial. What other steps do the Government and the Minister of State propose to take to ensure we get our historic debt, such as distressed mortgages and SME debt, dealt with? We need restructuring of debt rather than sales of assets and repossessions because these do not contribute to a good functioning economy.

Yesterday, I was disturbed to hear the anecdotal evidence of colleagues in the Dáil in regard to vulture funds which now propose to sell properties which are increasing in value to recover the debt. Will the Minister of State assure me this will not be allowed happen and that we will not see properties sold unnecessarily? Will he assure us that the first option will be to restructure and reorganise debt to create a better economic climate that will allow people recover from debt? This is particularly important for householders, but also for SMEs. How does the Minister of State propose to see that the Central Bank monitoring arrangements are carried out? These are timely and apt recommendations. What improvements does he propose to make on these? We have all heard stories as public representatives in our clinics of people not getting settlements. Will the Minister of State assure us the monitoring process will work and how it will do so? Will he assure us properties will not be sold simply because they are getting more valuable? That is a lazy option for the debt holders.