Mr. Dermot Sreenan:

I wish to answer the question. I will try to cut through the sheer weight of numbers with stories. Two stories came from the court mentor I was talking to this week. They refer to the granting of two possession orders in the Dublin courts. One of them was on the basis that less than €6,000 was owed on the mortgage and it was granted. In another story, less than €11,000 was owed and the mortgage was being paid. It was also granted. Those are two possession orders.

The key component of both of these stories was that the person was not present in the court. I echo what Mr. Joyce says. If people get a summons to go to court, they need to show up. They will be met there by somebody from MABS, whereby they will become part of the system and the process. We can bring them into the wealth of experience that MABS has and work with them on our holistic approach to looking at debt budgeting, what is affordable and everything else. If people engage with the process there is a very strong likelihood they will not end up in such situations.

It is important for people to understand they should engage with the process all the time and engage with MABS, because there is a fundamental power imbalance at the heart of what is going on.

The banks and the nonbanks have an army of lawyers at their disposal. They aim it at a single individual. That individual needs to engage with our service. He or she will then become part of the data that we provide to the committee. We can make informed decisions and tell exactly what the level of engagement is when we go on to negotiate or have bilateral meetings with nonbanks. People need to engage with the service as much as possible. We can then come back to the Oireachtas and present what the problem is. It is then up to the politicians to legislate.