Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make my last point, if I may, Chairman. All of us as public representatives have had to engage with various banks over the past ten to 12 years where people were in difficulty because of unwise lending on the one hand and unwise borrowing on the customer's part. I have looked at cases, as I know the Chairman and all the members of the committee have, in which not in a month of Sundays would I have considered awarding to some of the people concerned the kind of facility that was given to them. It clearly undermined their ability to have any freedom for the rest of their lives. People were engaging in most unwise borrowing, and it proved so. My request at this stage is that the lending conditions operated by the banks be of such a nature as to protect the borrower as well. I ask that this nonsense of extended interest-only loans, which mysteriously matured in the middle of the crash, not continue. It may suit speculators but it does not suit the long-term customers who want to live their own lives in their own way and in security.