Dr. Rory Hearne:

In terms of responding to Senator Norris on that, the context of why I am supporting this is the wider housing crisis. There has been a sense that the mortgage arrears crisis is sorting itself out and that we have seen a decline in the number of people in mortgage arrears. However, either there is not an understanding or a failure to see that there has been a relatively low level of repossession up to this point and the banks have made decisions to hold off on that. We have seen an increase in the amount of mortgages that are held by vulture funds or non-bank entities from €2 billion to €6 billion. However, that situation is going to change in terms of repossessions. Last year there were almost 1,600 home repossessions, which was a significant increase on previous years. What we are likely to see is a further increase. In a sense, we think the mortgage arrears crisis is sorting itself out but in actual fact what we will see is an acceleration of repossessions. If we add that to the already 60 to 70 families becoming homeless each month, and the wider lack of supply of social housing, unless something radical is done very quickly the current housing crisis will get much worse. While the exact details of whether this is off-balance sheet or how it might be set up need to be worked out as we go on the necessity of a radical intervention is really important. That is the message that needs to come across.