Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 16 February 2017
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2017
Vote 1 - President's Establishment (Revised)
Vote 2 - Department of the Taoiseach (Revised)
Vote 3 - Office of the Attorney General (Revised)
Vote 4 - Central Statistics Office (Revised)
Vote 5 - Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Revised)
Vote 6 - Office of the Chief State Solicitor (Revised)
11:10 am
John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source
Yesterday the Minister for Finance was before the committee and we spoke about the banks. It appears from our engagement with the banks that the numbers of repossessions will dramatically increase in 2017, which is an issue which concerns us all. I put forward a suggestion to the Minister about a friendly vulture fund or an agency that would be the preferred agency to purchase these debts from the bank at the same rate that a vulture fund might do. This would allow people to stay in their homes, allow them to pay their own rent or have a mortgage arrangement. That would solve that problem. Can the Government take an initiative in that area to try to curb those repossessions and keep people in their homes and have an agency of the State involved, perhaps funded by Government bonds in a similar way to NAMA, except on a far smaller scale?
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