Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is very real for many people. We are sitting in here and I know we will have a bit of good craic as we go through this, but there are 130,000 people who are locked out of this scheme by the Minister's proposal. There are 130,000 families who are not going to get mortgage interest relief, regardless of how much their mortgage went up in the past year. That is completely unfair. I hear what the Minister is saying about his looking to target it and all of the rest. In the main, this is an income shock for families. None of us expect mortgage interest relief to be continued indefinitely, and indeed we anticipate we may see some reductions in European Central Bank rates some time next year. There is, however, a shock for families.

I have given the Minister an example of one of the 130,000 people who are locked out of the his scheme, a person who has seen their mortgage repayment increased by €2,000. That is more than their energy costs in a year. The Government introduced measures which will help them with their energy costs. That is to be welcomed but there is no targeting there. It is for everybody. This family, and many others like them, have seen their mortgage repayment increased by €2,000 per annum and there is no support for them.

It is absolutely cruel that this has happened. We know families who heard this announcement which said that the Government had finally acknowledged that, after ten mortgage interest rate increases, it is going to do something to help them. Then, when they looked at the detail, they saw they were one of the 130,000 people whom the Minister has left to one side. There is no justification for that. This is a temporary scheme to support people in the middle of an income shock when mortgage interest rates at ECB level have never been higher. I reminded the Minister again that he argued, campaigned and tried to negotiate with his partners in Fine Gael during the confidence and supply government arrangement for 100% mortgage interest relief at a time when the ECB rates were zero. Now he is in the hot seat and has the decision to actually do something to benefit people at a time when mortgage interest rates have never been higher, at a time when ten letters have been falling in through the letterboxes of these homes, and his response is to lock 130,000 of them out. It is shameful. It is cruel and it is embarrassing that, as a Minister, he has done a massive U-turn on this issue.

Most importantly, he is forgetting people who have suffered a very significant income shock in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It is not appropriate at all that he has done that; absolutely not. A €2,000 income shock to a family is an income shock to a family regardless. There will be people, and the Minister has acknowledged this, who have seen their mortgage repayments increase by €2,000, and other families, perhaps because they have fixed interest rates or have been on a variable rate, where their rates have not gone up much and where they may have an income shock of €800. They will be receiving support under the Minister's proposal but the family which has €2,000 of an increase are not getting the support. It makes no sense. It is unfair, it is cruel and it should be changed between now and Report Stage. This is a one-off measure. This is not what this measure should be targeted at. The resources are available to support those families in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and the Minister should be doing the right thing. That €80,000 restriction makes no sense.

The Minister says they have the capacity. How does he know they have the capacity? They got an income shock more than some of the people who will benefit from this. Perhaps they have a smaller mortgage than somebody who took out their mortgage last year or the year before, but the same could be argued about somebody on €150,000 or whatever. The Minister knows, as anybody else does, that family budgets are family budgets. The family paying that mortgage who did not foresee they would be paying €2,000 more to keep a roof over their head, and let us forget about all the other bills, got an income shock. This is about supporting them at this time and trying to cushion the blow. It is not about taking it all on. They will still have that shock and have to pay most of it themselves. It is about stepping in and saying “We are here for you”. The Minister is saying to those 137,800 families, “You are on your own. This Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Government does not care about your plight in this regard.” It is shameful and it is shameful for the Green Party as well, whose member is indicating to come in. It is absolutely appalling. There is no rationale for this type of cut-off in this legislation.