Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I ask the Minister of State for guidance on how I can communicate with my constituents ways and means for them to get out of their predicament. I will give an example of a woman in her 50s who has been defaulting on her mortgage for the past 12 months. She has been living off a credit card for the past two months. She cannot get a job. She hears in the news and reads in the newspapers that interest rates are coming down and that the property is going into negative equity. However, she does not hear anything about her telephone bill coming down or a decrease in the price of food to keep her going on a weekly basis. How can we allow a situation like this to develop? In the past 12 months her mortgage provider has not contacted her with regard to her default. It has not written to arrange to meet her to discuss ways to deal with the situation. Rather than meeting with this client, the bank has allowed her to move to another bank to obtain and live off a Visa card. This situation is spiralling out of control. Next Tuesday, we will be faced with a similar situation. People trying to make ends meet will have their income reduced. We need to allow the Government to govern.

With regard to regulation, what is the taxi regulator doing? Taxi drivers speak about more than 20,000 taxis being in this city, yet prices have not come down. The prices of only certain items are reducing. The Government's role is to govern regulation. Regulatory arms of Government can do this but they are not doing so. I know I am moving into a different arena that does not entirely involve this issue. What emphasis should the Government be placing on banks to make them live up to their responsibility to bring their customers in and not allowing 12 months to pass without trying to arrange a meeting with them? People are led into a false sense of security when the banks are not hunting them and it allows them to get into further debt. We need to take control and help those who need budgetary help.

We need vetted and regulated debt collectors. In my five years in the Seanad, Senator Shane Ross shouted from the rooftops about the lack of regulatory control of auctioneers. We also need to do this with debt collectors. The Government can talk about international turbulent waters. We have a problem in this country and we are not taking control of it. That is where we need to start.

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