Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: Discussion

4:10 pm

Mr. Ross Maguire:

That is a super question. That is one of the issues that has raised its head on our tours. It is not that everyone has to go bankrupt but the knowledge there is the threat of it helps the negotiating position. That is the first point. The second point is that one comes out of bankruptcy in three years but the effective bankruptcy is from the first moment. In terms of a person getting credit again, there is a need for lenders in the State, whether it be a new lender, and that could well happen, to consider people who have gone through insolvency and see them as better credits. In other words, I could say to someone that if they go bankrupt and eradicate their debt or enter an insolvency arrangement and eradicate their debts, I am here to lend. Often people are in stable employment and are perfectly good credits. The difficulty is that they have too much debt. It would put huge pressure on the incumbents if someone came into the market to do that at a fair rate as opposed to a type of sub-prime loan. That is something we are actively considering. That would be the perfect solution where one could say to a person to fix their position by using the insolvency system or bankruptcy and one would be there for the person because that person was a better credit in three years time when they were free of debt than someone who had been trying to bail out a sinking ship for all that time.