John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

An EU commissioner has told this committee that one of the country specific recommendations for Ireland was to write-off debt. Let us say I owed the bank €10,000 but it wants to sell the loan to vulture funds for €5,000 but I ask the bank to sell the loan to me for €7,500 or €6,000. That is not debt forgiveness. That is a debt write-off. The bank would make more money from the last deal than it would from a vulture fund. The PTSB wants to take the lazy option by not working at a lower level but take a lump sum from the vulture funds.