Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I regret the Minister has not taken the opportunity of referring to the most recent Central Bank report, nor has he expressed his personal concern as to whether he thinks debt levels of 160% of average incomes represent a sustainable level of personal credit. The fact that this situation has been flagged in several recent reports by the Central Bank demands a political response from the Minister. His reply highlighted that the national debt has been stabilised, but that has largely been achieved through economic growth and the efficient management of that debt. The State still owes €33 billion. Other factors must also be taken into account, including a recent OECD report that inflation is undervalued by 1% because of high price inflation. Property values here are probably overvalued by between 5% and 7% and, therefore, they hardly provide the asset-backed measures to which the Minister referred in his reply.

The debate is not about whether the European Central Bank is likely to raise the base interest rate, but by how much, 0.5% or 1%. In the coming year, the 160% level of personal debt is likely to rise substantially through default. The Minister seems to be devoid of responses as to what he intends to do politically to avoid this risk being experienced by individual citizens. It seems to be a transference of a national debt that the State owes to a large-scale personal debt for each citizen. What policies are being put in place to counteract that?

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