Mr. David Hall:

The biggest concern has been the sale of loans by vulture funds to super vulture funds. Banks selling to vulture funds of varying levels of despicability has always been a concern. It is an awful pity that the vulture funds do not have the wherewithal to appear before the committee because their representatives would speak honestly. One of them asked me why a fund would repossess a house in County Clare where the owner is in arrears, having not paid the mortgage, and the value is increasing at a rate of 8% per year. In such circumstances, why would the fund not sell on the loan given that it had exceeded its entire target on the portfolio three years previously? People are saying that these companies are not issuing as many repossession proceedings. We do not have proper data on repossession proceedings from the Central Bank. The committee would be well advised to ask the Central Bank for effective repossession data on the number of proceedings that are before the courts because, as Mr. Joyce mentioned and we have discussed this previously, it is recording adjournments as separate repossession proceedings. We do not actually know what they have.

I do not believe there is anywhere else in the world where the vulture funds have recovered as much money on their investment as they have in Ireland. This is a major challenge and concern and the most concerning aspect and the one about which they smile most is that many of them will not have had to repossess many properties. They will get a chance to sell them on to super vulture funds and make the money they intended to make without having to do the dirty work of repossessing a family home.