Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation for coming before the committee. Mr. Hall has described the charade around trying to get things going in respect of distressed mortgages, and how complicated everything is. He mentioned the idea of an agency or a court that would make a quick bullet point decision on such matters that would be binding. He talks about AIB and whether Bank of Ireland and the vulture funds can be made accountable to that agency or that court as well, so that we do not end up solving some of the problems but not others.

Deputy Coppinger raised this issue earlier, and I feel that what is happening at the moment is that the banks are waiting for the value of these houses to go up. That may be why the process of repossession is slow - they are waiting to repossess at a time when they will get most of their money back, so rather than doing it this year they will wait until next year, or whatever. Would that be Mr. Hall's view, that they are just stringing it out and letting the mortgage holder who is in distress suffer the mental strain of all these letters coming at them every couple of weeks but still leaving it until the value of the property gets to a level where they can sell it off, get the money back and hump off with the mortgage arrears? It is just an observation I have and I have a concern about it as well.