Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

My colleague, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, referred to the wards of court system. The banks have effectively been gambling with the money given to them on behalf of the wards of courts, and that money has been lost through an agency in the Bank of Ireland. Will the State introduce legislation to ensure the money that is there for the survival of these people is restored by the State given that the courts have gambled the money away through investing it or giving it to an agency to invest?

Most management companies are owned by builders and developers, some of whom are now broke as a consequence of their excessive greed. These management companies were like milch cows for developers, offering an additional source of profits. They seem to have been invented by a small group of developers and they caught on like mushrooms growing in the dark. People are now in a situation where they cannot sell their houses even if they can find a buyer because there is a lien on the title deed which requires them to make payments to a management company that no longer exists. The urgency of this situation is greater than ever. We have been pestering the Government for the past four or five years to introduce legislation. Will some effort be made to bring forward that promised legislation in the next session?

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