Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Honohan for attending. His material is very good and definitely stimulates thought. His point about outright purchase certainly makes sense. We all know that if we start building, we will continue to have problems for at least three years anyway. The outright purchase would deal with it more quickly.

Does Mr. Honohan think the argument for the public good in the Constitution would override the property rights if it were challenged? Given the neoliberal position of the established parties in Ireland, whereby there is a tendency to prioritise the interests of the private sector over the public interest, how would the witness approach dealing with that ideology and their mental approach to that? This is also very much driven by the European Union. For example, we are not allowed to borrow money at less than 1% to invest in infrastructure because the European Union tells us we must go through the private sector and the public private partnership, PPP, process under which one pays between 15 and 20 times more for the money. The cost of money for a PPP can be anything up to 15%, whereas we boast that we can borrow for less than 1%. Given that this ideology is well established in our political parties and is being driven by Europe as well, how would the witness foresee overcoming that obstacle?

With regard to the vulture funds, it is obvious that they bought at fire sale prices. Often they were sold properties for less than half of what it cost to build them. It was irrational to do that. Let us suppose we had the will to purchase many of those compulsorily back from the vulture funds. Does the witness know if there is an international example of how much they would be paid above what they paid? Obviously they would like to get what they think the property is worth today, but is there an international example of how much we could get it back for above what they paid for it? For example, could it be linked to inflation? Could they be paid just what it cost them in the price of money since they bought the property, to compensate them and not leave them at a loss but creating a situation where they would not have a gain?

My last question is completely different and probably not directly linked to what we are discussing here. When Mr. Honohan was talking earlier about how courts deal with what comes down the tracks to them and very often the lack of responsibility on the part of the State, he talked about giving them challenges without guidelines. Regarding how the Commercial Court has behaved in the past few years, does he think it has behaved in a totally independent fashion in how it has dealt with major loans?