John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to return the focus to Deputy Michael McGrath's Bill. In his opening remarks the Minister said that the intention behind the Bill is to help people with mortgage repayments. Essentially, that is what we are talking about. Having listened to the Minister and the general debate on the Bill it would appear to me that the banks are continuing to screw particular mortgage holders, that the Central Bank is turning a blind eye to this practice and that while we continue to talk about the matter and try to encourage change there is little change coming about. As that happens, people's lives are affected. Alongside this is the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act and the manner in which that is playing out in the courts, in terms of the aggressive approach being taken by the banks, which is almost an abuse of their position, which is shocking. It is unforgivable that we, as legislators, would allow this to happen. The banks are being allowed to rebuild their balance sheets at an enormous pace, using aggressive and abusive means to do so, and we are not prepared to step in and put some sort of block in the way to reduce the speed at which they are doing so in order to bring some sort of balance into the situation such that the life of a mortgage holder in distress can at least be given consideration.

The Minister referred more than once in his opening remarks to new entrants to the market and switching, an issue which has also been raised more than once thus far in this discussion. The people paying these higher interest rates are not able to switch. I would like to see any of them go into a bank and ask for a switch. Nobody is interested in them. They appear to be being dumped on a pile and nobody is paying a blind bit of notice to what is going on in their lives. The Central Bank, accompanied by representatives of its consumer protection section, appeared before us in the context of our discussion on the insurance industry. They were less than impressive. They have no interest in the consumer protection end of this matter and they had little or no interest in terms of the consumer and the insurance premiums bar that the companies had to rebuild. We are offering up the consumer in this case in order to ensure that the banks rebuild their balance sheets. I think that is appalling. This Bill should be supported. It was supported in principle on Second Stage and I would urge greater consideration of it, with a greater input from the apparatus of Government, to ensure it is enacted.