Mr. Dermot Sreenan:

In the previous six months. One of the other fundamental points ties in with the point that Mr. Joyce was making earlier, which is that there is a real, fundamental need to address resources. Given the power imbalance that lies at the heart of this process, we need to have money advisers and dedicated mortgage arrears, DMA, advisers in the posts they are in to continue to deal with the volume. We anticipate when the moratorium ends on disconnections, which is at the end of this month, with evictions being another massive issue, that our services will see a huge uptake and increase. Again, I have to say clearly that everybody who needs MABS should have access to MABS. The power imbalance is addressed by ensuring that people have an advocate and a client-focused, holistic approach to debt and debt management with an organisation that has been around for 30 years. Some people not too far from me have been through one recession already. We were there in 2008 and 2009. We can get people through this but we need to be resourced appropriately. The DMA scheme is a specific case in point.

It was initiated in 2016 with the aim that in two years we would be back, have sorted it out and grasped the nettle around the repossession orders and that. We are here six years later and that is funded on the basis that we have a contract that is renewed until the end of the year. We do not know whether the DMA advisers that are doing a huge amount of work in this area will be around next year. It is currently under review by Indecon. I will not read it out, but basically the DMA funding and service was granted until the end of 2023, it is currently under review and we expect to hear an announcement on the scheme. Those jobs should just be made permanent. Those resources are desperately needed. The work that MABS, the DMA service, and Abhaile do is not going away; it is only increasing. We need to be resourced appropriately. That is a clear message that I hope the committee hears today.