Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

All mortgages in arrears broadly fall into one of three categories. The first category is where the personal insolvency arrangement can help. Basically, if the debtor diverted all of the money they had towards the mortgage to service its current market value, then a deal could be done. In other words, say one has a mortgage €300,000 but the property is only worth €100,000. The personal insolvency arrangement can deal with any scenario where the debtor can service €100,000 or more. The bulk of borrowers can be helped in this way.

Then there are those who cannot service the current market value of their mortgage but only some element of it. That is where mortgage-to-rent is the best solution to keep the roof over their heads. They will lose the ownership of the property but in terms of the neighbours or the children staying in their school, they do not move and they are still in that property.

There is a third category, which is the smallest by far. The persons in this category are, unfortunately, likely to lose their homes. That is where in effect they have no means whatsoever by which they can service a private mortgage. We have to recognise there will always be a cohort of people who, unfortunately, will lose their homes in that scenario.

For the first two categories, there is no reason that the legislation would not deal with the bulk of the issues involved. The Abhaile scheme, which has been operating for a year, is bringing debtors into the tent who are in a far more difficult place than they were in the past. We were probably dealing with the low-hanging fruit in the early years. Through the free consultation with practitioners, what one tends to see with the Abhaile cases is that they are either age-challenged, income-challenged or both. That makes the solution that bit more difficult. Even with those helped through Abhaile to date, we have saved the family home in 91% of cases. It is by far and away likely that the majority will be able stay in their homes. What we need to do is help those people. The sooner we do, the fewer arrears will have built up.