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

That is correct in the sense that it is more beneficial to the lending institutions to resolve it than it is to the person who expects to get compassion or understanding as to how they might resolve the problem from their point of view.

Incidentally, I want to acknowledge that, following the crash, some banks were helpful and compassionate. Some banks engaged with the customers. Some banks engaged with the various public representatives who had forced them with the view to a resolution. It did not cost them anything. The public representatives do not charge a fee or anything like that, so it was therefore a free service. However, some banks did not do that. Some banks established a pugilistic attitude in the face of a critical crisis that affected the whole country. It was not as if that problem was not envisaged. It was obvious that it had been coming down the tracks for years. It had to happen, and the economy had overheated.

In relation to the issue of over-building and having too many houses, the big rush afterwards was to say that people should demolish the houses that were built. I never heard anything as ludicrous in my life, because it was known that the population of the country was going up all the time, so there had to be solutions.

I will make my last point because I do not want to hog the floor. Other speakers want to intervene as well. In the case of solutions being achieved between a lender and a customer, which may have come about as a result of a relationship breaking up or whatever the case may be, there have been cases where a solution was found to facilitate one of the partners. Then, we get back into the old days of "jointly" and "separately" and all that kind of thing. This would happen with one of the partners, without the knowledge of the other, so that the remaining person on the mortgage would then discover that they owed the whole debt. That would happen suddenly when it had not been envisaged before at all. That is not uncommon; it has happened several times. They are stuck with it. That person - and it happens to both men and women - will now have to deal with the problem of the future.

They will not get a loan from the lending institution they were with before, and they will not get a loan from any other lending institution because their credit rating is gone and they have to wait four or five years or whatever still remains at a time when house prices are going up at the same time, so that they cannot catch up. The whole market has gone out of their reach and is going further and further away.

If possible, I would like to see the banks take the following steps. A useful submission has been made about mica and the various other issues that have affected the construction sector. That is as it should be. It would be very important to bring in the other people I mentioned with a view to putting a package together to bridge the gap between the Government's proposals and the requirements at the present time. I think it is attainable and it could easily be done.

The other question I would like an answer to is in relation to first-time buyers. People can be first-time buyers for various reasons. For example, they could be in a new relationship. As an entity, for the two people seeking a mortgage or loan, it can be their first time in that context. In various ways they constitute an entity similar to a first-time buyer. I put the question to all of the banks again about the ordinary first-time buyer that we still have a problem with. What methods or items are in the field now to cater for people on the average wage - those earning between €40,000 and €50,000? It could be a couple who have too high an income to qualify for a local authority loan and too low an income to qualify for a loan because of the escalating house prices. What hope can we give them now?