Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire. Those are important questions.

First of all, in respect of section 4 of the Bill and the power of the Minister to set out the prescribed levels of income and assets and so on, the intention is that it would mirror the reasonable living guidelines of the Insolvency Service. That can be made explicitly clear in the section. There is certainly no intention to have a different entry point as such, in terms of the asset or income situation of the borrower concerned.

I have not seen the Insolvency Service submission but I would welcome the suggestion that creditors be required to provide greater clarity during the process as to how they wish to see their debts resolved - that does not go far enough - and the suggestion that they would be restricted in the appeals process to arguments that they made during the protective certificate stage. What I am hearing back is that they are frustrating the appeal system. There are affidavits flying backwards and forwards. They are requiring extra submissions. They are coming back at the last minute. Cases are now taking more than a year to go through that whole system. Deputy Ó Laoghaire mentioned correctly that 32,000 family home mortgages are in arrears of two years or more. When one considers that 57 have come through the appeal system successfully so far, although not all of them went into it, that system is certainly not working.

As for section 12, the intention certainly is not that it would be open-ended in terms of the bank appeal. I am open to inserting an amendment there that places some restriction on the overall length of time that it takes.

Finally, in respect of the long-term arrears cases, this is a real problem. Mr. David Hall's organisation has done a lot of work on this but it is important to give statutory recognition to mortgage-to-rent as an option. It should be in there as an option for the Insolvency Service or the mortgage resolution office that, in cases where borrowers want to remain in the home, mortgage-to-rent would be an option within the service. It is important to give expression and statutory recognition to it.