Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

It is the kind of thing one sees happening to emperors at the end of an empire. The Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, stated the motion before the House is ill-judged and accused the Labour Party, and myself in particular, of being hysterical, scaremongering and causing panic and unease. The point of the motion is to address the panic, unease, fear and in some cases hysteria among people who are now afraid of losing their home.

In the High Court last week there were 37 cases for repossession of homes and we know cases are being queued for house repossessions. We have heard of something in the order of over 7,000 people who are now in receipt of mortgage subsidy, many experiencing the pleasures of social assistance for the first time. Some 14,000 people are now behind in their mortgage payments by a minimum of three months. There are many people who are worried about losing their home, and as more people lose their jobs and businesses, that is likely to increase.

It does not have to be like that. There is a way in which people can be reassured that they can continue to live in their own home. It is possible to devise arrangements whereby for the period of the recession — we may be talking about a period of two to four years — people can at least be reassured that they will not be put out of their home. That is a practical proposal which can be achieved through arrangements with the banks, for which the Government is acting as guarantor. Apparently the Government will recapitalise the banks by putting at least €4 billion from the pension reserves into them in some form or other.

In any event, if people have their homes repossessed, the Government will have to pay rent allowance or provide social housing or some kind of shelter for people losing their homes. It makes sense for those arrangements to be recast so that people will know if they lose their job because of bad times for a couple of years, at least they can continue to live in their own home.

If the Government did this, far from creating panic, fear and all the other things we are accused of, much of the fear among people about their future and where they will be for the next couple of years would be reduced. If the Government could do that much in that kind of climate, new possibilities would be opened for the direction of the economy. Confidence would be increased and the kind of reassurance would be provided for people to enable other necessary actions through social partnership over the next year or two. It is a practical proposal.

What is the Government's response to this? It rejects the proposal.

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