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

I wish to add my voice to the voices of previous speakers when they spoke to the Commissioner about the activities of vulture funds in Ireland, and to underline the fact that they are causing devastation in society. Her last point relating to financial literacy is central to what is happening. The borrowers are now faced with dealing with a vulture fund and the language being used by the vulture funds is high-end financial language, which is poorly understood by those who are trying to engage in finding a solution to their problem with the vulture funds. In addition, the vulture funds, by and large, ignore the regulation regarding the loan they have just purchased. They put the borrower to great strain. They are breaking businesses and individuals and they are repossessing farms. We are losing a generation of entrepreneurs because of what they are doing. People end up on the Irish Credit Bureau list and their future is damaged beyond repair.

I ask the Commissioner, in 2021, to put individuals at the centre of what she is doing. They have suffered badly from the financial crash and from the ongoing financial difficulties they have experienced through the pandemic. They now need a break. It appears to me, from hearings at this committee over the past five years, that banks ignore them. They pay lip service to the regulation. I believe this country has a banking sector that is close to being out of control, and I do not say that lightly. The Commissioner is meeting the Irish Financial Services Union regarding Ulster Bank. It is shocking that 3,000 employees of that bank, through their representatives, cannot have a constructive meeting about the future of the bank and their jobs. The customers are also worried. It tells one a great deal about the attitude of banks, including the attitude of Ulster Bank to this Parliament, because its representatives will not turn up, and its attitude to trade unions, because it will not engage with them. In the course of next year we are faced with that problem in Ulster Bank, 1,500 jobs in doubt in AIB and a further number of that type in Bank of Ireland.

A great deal must be done by Europe to deal with financial literacy, on the one hand, and then to deal with the controls that are necessary on the mainstream banks to support those who are in mortgage difficulty and to provide mortgages, as Deputy O'Callaghan said, at a reasonable interest rate. The Sparkasse bank model is often discussed in this committee in terms of its interest rates and the community nature of that bank. I would love to see the Commission promoting the concept of community banking, to give people the opportunity to engage with that type of banking system. It is far more sensitive to their needs than the vulture funds and the other banks.