Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too have met with Mr. Kincaid. One of the positive things we hear from the Central Bank is that not only are the likes of MABS and Deputies like myself and others bringing some of these cases to the bank, the Central Bank is also informing us that they are following up individually in these cases. If anybody who is listening is in that situation where procedures are not being followed, I would invite them to bring that directly to the attention of the Central Bank to inform it of exactly what is happening in some of these financial institutions.

I will move on to direct some questions to the representatives from Free Legal Advice Centre, FLAC. When we go through the process here, the vulture funds are asking mortgage holders to fill out a standard financial statement. Since these loans have been sold on now for a couple of years, they are in the process where they may have done three, four or five of these annual standard financial statements. They look at all the assets, they look at the income and outgoings of the family and they settle on an amount that is reasonable to pay. Let us say that was done last August or November. The game, however, has now completely changed.

I have an example of an individual who contacted me after hearing that Pepper was going to put up the interest rate again by 1%, which it announced at the end of February. That is before the interest rate hike that will come in March, in less than two weeks' time. At that stage, her standard financial statement was filled in and it was agreed that the repayment on her mortgage would be €1,477. That is what she could afford. It was based on all the information she had to provide. In early February, her mortgage was €1,822, more than she could afford under her standard financial statement. Today, her mortgage repayment is more than €2,000, which is more than €500 more than what her standard financial statement specifies, and €6,000 more per year. On 16 March, when Pepper passes the rate increase on, it will go up again by approximately €80 per month. This woman writes to me in desperation. She says the family have laid everything bare. Pepper knows exactly what they can pay and an agreement has been reached on that. They have no more money, yet they keep getting these letters to say their mortgage is increasing. Their income has not increased and, indeed, inflation has increased some of their expenditure. This woman is not alone. How does MABS deal with a case like that? The financial statements are so out of date because of the interest rate hikes. There seems to be no support. The Central Bank is clear that it is not going to intervene in terms of pricing. It makes the point to me that there is a role for the Oireachtas. Policy decisions can be implemented in the Oireachtas in terms of mortgage interest relief or other measures that some others might bring forward, but the Oireachtas should not be absolved of its duty to support these families. What does MABS do in a scenario like that?