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

I respect all the work the officials are doing. I will start from that point. The reason I asked that the committee would bring in the officials is because of the numerous stories I have head about receivers. I am giving the officials information that has come out of my discussions with borrowers and so on. The first thing I wanted to get absolutely clear was the fact that receivers are not accountable and are not regulated. I think Mr. McKenna said receivers are not accountable and not regulated although they may have a background as accountants or whatever. Receivers are appointed and when they are appointed, they take total control. In fact, a number of receivers - I am not saying all of them but the ones I have experienced - act like thugs and bullies. In Kilkenny, they set about notifying almost a complete housing estate that the receiver was taking over the property and they set out their case. There was no prior lead-up to it, they just notified everybody. In fact, they did not even own the houses; the houses belonged to Kilkenny County Council. Yet for the period that the tenants had got these letters, they were terrified. They saw people acting for receivers literally breaking down front doors, changing locks on vacant houses and bullying people in their family homes. That is just one example.

I have another example of a case here in Dublin where the receiver was Grant Thornton. I am naming the company because it was in the public domain so there is no issue around that. I went and tried to meet with them to discuss a case they were pursuing. They did to me what they do to an awful lot of other people who try to help. They got their solicitors to write to me. They spoke to me about the separation of powers and accused me of interfering and so on. That is the type of activity that is going on all over the country. Deputy Pearse Doherty gave an example that is not unusual. Social media give us reports of the various attempted evictions and so on that have taken place and the activities of these people when they visit homes. It is shocking.

I always believed that there was some form of regulation in place but there is not. Receivers are often appointed with no other purpose but to strong-arm the borrower and take possession. Once they take possession, the borrower cannot even get an account of the rents that they collect. The borrower is totally ignored and the asset is often run down to the extent that there is far less value in it in the context of the sale than what would have been the case had the borrower sold it. This is what is going on. The rip-off in professional fees relative to this activity is criminal. I note from the Deputy Doherty the quotation from the Master of the High Court to the effect that unaccountable receivership is licence for theft. That is the experience of people. My view is not extreme. It is based on fact. There seems to be no effort being made to curtail the activities of these receivers. Some of them may very well be accountants but I doubt very much they are all accountants or all qualified to do this job.

We absolutely have to intervene; there is no question about it. I am disappointed, given all the experiences Deputies have had, that a greater effort is not being made to ensure that these people are accountable. When the difficult point in negotiations is reached between the borrower and the vulture fund, bank or whatever, the threat is made that a receiver will be appointed immediately. The intention is to force the hand of the borrower to come up with the money or lose everything. That is the threat. It is another method used to squeeze money out of the already squeezed borrower. The whole thing is simply corrupt.

Now is not the time to be referring it to another group to deal with it. There must be immediate action to put the small things in place to prevent some of these big things from happening. We must then deal with the overall picture later on. It is outrageous that they are neither accountable nor regulated. There are clearly opportunities being taken by these individuals to collect large sums of money from rents, to sell properties and push up the price because the borrower is in trouble. I wonder if receivership is also used to clear title through court so they can sell properties and, after the sale is over, if the title is wrong or there is something odd about it, they can clean it and off it goes.

There are serious misgivings about all of this that the various Departments need to address without delay. I would like to know what sort of immediate response we are going to have to the issues we have raised today. Please do not tell me we are going to have a review group because the receivers will jump with joy when they hear that.