Mr. David Hall:

Yes, they are all in the possession of the banks. They have either been given voluntarily or have been repossessed. Every quarter if one looks, the line is the same, it fluctuates between 920 and 1,020. It is exactly the same every time.

They have no purpose other than controlling the market and they have always held those properties on their books. The number is the same each time. They repossess 179 or 240 per quarter. They sell 230 but they always keep 1,000 houses on the books. In any rational environment, those 1,000 houses would be gone. They would be given to or sold to a local authority and offered up as housing. They would be made good in the event that some of them were not up to standard. They would be dealt with instantly but that is not being done. I share Deputy Canney's concern on that issue.

Many people have buy-to-let properties as well as family homes. If someone's financial circumstances are evaluated and it is determined that they are in grave financial difficulty, the only reason for doing a deal with the person to hold on to the buy-to-let is for one to take rent while the price of the property increases. For an individual who owns a buy-to-let property, it is unclear what the bank intends to do with them in 12 or 24 months, or at any time. I must inform Deputy Durkan that we say to people that there should be no surrendering of a property until such time as the residual debt is dealt with, even if that means not paying the €300 someone may be able to afford to pay. If a bank takes someone to court and requires them to pay €1,300 and they can pay only €300, questions must be asked as to why they would pay the €300.