Ms Julie Sadlier:

My colleague, Mr. O'Reilly, will assist me. I am a solicitor working with Phoenix Project Ireland, while Mr. O'Reilly is a financial adviser with many years experience in the financial services industry. We have gathered some statistics from a wide range of people with whom we have dealt since the foundation of the project in 2008. I will give details of the worrying aspects of the statistics, while Mr. O'Reilly will help to answer questions about these statistics and financial information.

Ours is a unique organisation which was specifically formed in 2008 to deal with this crisis. We are not funded by the Government or banks and do not charge fees. We rely entirely on donations from the public to provide the service. We have seen 20,000 people since our foundation. Since the introduction of the MARP targets last August, we have seen more than 3,000 people and surveyed all of the details of their experiences. That survey produced some startling results, showing that in the case of more than 50% of the people we had seen, their only resolution option was eviction. That comes dressed in three sets of clothing. Court proceedings have been issued in the case of 3.35%; 14% are being threatened with repossession by means of solicitors' letters; 33% have received letters from banks asking them to surrender their homes or, in some cases, offering them the option to sell their homes. Interestingly, almost all of the letters contain a reference to the availability of a mortgage-to-rent option, yet I heard for the first time today that this was no longer available. Up until today all I could see in statistics was that funding was available from the Government for 250 mortgages-to-rent this year. From the statistics at our disposal, if, as the March Central Bank figures claim, there are 136,000 home loan mortgages in arrears across the banks covered in the Central Bank report, we calculate that just over 50% have received direct threats of proceedings for repossession or invitations to sell their properties. All of the available official statistics from the Central Bank and the Department of Finance deal with court repossessions only. They deal with restructuring offers and court repossessions. We have provided the committee with a pie chart of repossessions not covered by official statistics; these are the voluntary surrender letters and the letters threatening legal proceedings. We can give the committee more details about these statistics.

One of our greatest concerns about the voluntary sale-voluntary surrender letters is the silence. We have no idea how many people are offering up their keys every day. Whenever we talk about the number of court repossession orders being one or two a day, we have no idea what is happening in this silent area and I am not sure if we will ever know. This is a significant concern. We see people daily who have no idea where they will go. At this point they believe they have no choice but to hand over the keys. In fact, one of our biggest roles is to advise people no to do so, that there is due process in law.

If one waits for proceedings to issue, as one is entitled to do, it could take up to two years for due process to take place. One may even be able to challenge some of this under the MARP code. The High Court recently handed down a decision in which it refused repossession because the bank had not complied with the mortgage arrears code. Part of our brief is to stop people from handing over the keys. The bigger problem for such individuals relates to where they should go and where they should live. They do not qualify for restructuring because they do not have enough money. I was interested in the statistic produced by MABS to the effect that 60% of the people with which it dealt were unemployed. This means that 40% of its clients are on wages, but we must ask what wages they are on. That is our experience. Another interesting statistic provided by MABS is that 55% of its clients are aged between 41 and 60 years. Again, that is a common statistic for us. The people concerned do not fit into the sustainable criteria to which Mr. Burgess referred.

Another worrying trend is that there is a huge focus on positive equity. Anybody in positive equity is not being offered restructuring. That is where the whole process is moving. Unfortunately, as the groups which addressed the committee before us indicated, transparency around resolution options is completely absent. Mr. Joyce from FLAC dealt with this matter in the context of provision 40 of the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. I outlined the actual wording of that provision in the submission I made to the committee. Provision 40 is not being adhered to. We asked the banks, in line with the rules on data protection, to provide us with a detailed consideration of the options for borrowers, but they have failed to do so. In the context of the rules on data protection, the banks are very willing to provide information on every other area within 40 days. However, we are not receiving the information we are seeking on this matter. We are really concerned about this. The Central Bank has informed us of its belief the banks are not obliged to provide this information for their customers. That does not make sense. We cannot advise people on their restructuring options until we know what are the criteria being applied. We need to be informed. Nobody else can do it either.