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

The Commissioner and Vice-President of the European Commission and his team are very welcome. I would like to raise a few issues with him. I note his list of responsibilities includes proposing measures to make financial services work better for consumers and retail investors. A key consumer issue in Ireland regarding financial services is the very high mortgage interest rates charged to Irish consumers. In Ireland, the official Central Bank Statistics show that for all new mortgages, whether they be variable or fixed rate, 3.18% is the average rate. In the eurozone the equivalent is 1.83%. We regularly see publicity around interest rates as low as 1% to 1.5% across Europe and consumers here are paying, in some cases, more than 4%. We do not have a fully functioning Single Market in the area of financial services. Therefore, people in Ireland find it difficult to understand why they cannot access cheap mortgage rates that are available elsewhere in Europe. Does the Commissioner have any plans to deal with that issue?