Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Is Bille rí-thábhachtach é seo. Mar a dúirt mo chomhghleacaí, an Teachta Morgan, nuair a bhí sé ag labhairt faoi seo, ní chóir go mbeadh sé os ár gcomhair in aon chor, ach tá sé ann. Tá deis agam impí ar an Rialtas, fiú ag an stad seo, é a tharraingt siar. Caithfidh an Rialtas éisteacht ceart a thabhairt do moltaí na ndaoine ar cad ba chóir dúinn a dhéanamh leis an slám mór airgid a chuirfear ar strae má théimid dul síos bóthar NAMA.

Inné, d'eisigh mé preasráiteas mar gheall ar iad siúd le morgáistí. Dúirt an ESRI go mbeidh 35,000 duine i gcruachás maidir leis an morgáiste atá acu, ó thaobh a tithe de, sa bhliain atá amach romhainn. Más fíor sin, tá fadhb mór ag teacht romhainn sa Stát seo muna dhéanamid rud éigin chun déanamh cinnte de nach mbeidh 35,000 teach gafa ag na bancanna nó na comhlachtaí morgáistí a thóg iad sin dóibh. Cuirfear 35,000 clann amach ar an sráid, os rud é nach féidir leo a morgáistí a íoc, muna dhéanfaimid rud éigin. Dúirt mé gur chóir dúinn féachant ar conas is féidir linn déileáil le seo i gceart.

This is not just about figures in the air and NAMA, but about real lives. Yesterday, the ESRI stated that 35,000 people would be unable to pay their mortgages next year. That is a shocking indictment of Government policies during the Celtic tiger years. People bought their homes at the height of the boom and they are not to blame for the situation in which they find themselves, struggling to maintain mortgages on what were once hyper-inflated properties. Yesterday's report is an indictment. In those years, successive Fianna Fáil-led Governments, the Central Bank and the management in those banks which are now before the Government with a begging bowl, encouraged people and forced families in many cases to pay hyper-inflated prices for their properties, or pay hyper-rents. There was no alternative, because the investment required for social housing was not there.

I disagree with the ESRI's suggestion that people who run into difficulties should have their mortgage rescheduled. Many of these people bought their properties in the last five or ten years. Many of them did so because the Central Bank allowed 100% mortgages and even 110% mortgages in some cases. These people now have a noose around their necks. They also have 35 to 40 year mortgages, because that option was encouraged to get everybody into the property market, as if the Celtic tiger would never slow down or never die. It is not an option for those with 35 or 40 year mortgages to re-mortgage. What will happen to them? There is no social housing to pick up the tab that the Government should have picked up. There is no empty social housing around the country which would take this up.

The banks that lent so recklessly and the developers who coined the money at the height of the boom should share the pain these people are facing. If people run into difficulties in repaying their mortgages, then an option could be to reduce the costs of the mortgage more in line with the actual value of the home. I did a quick calculation on some of the banks' submissions on NAMA and used a geographical breakdown to lift the number of mortgages in the Twenty-six Counties out of the figures that were presented to us by the Minister a few weeks ago. The total residential lending of the five banks covered by NAMA - I am excluding Anglo Irish Bank as it lent very little for residential mortgages - came to about €100.25 billion. If we accept that roughly one third of those people took their mortgages out in the last five or six years, then that comes to about €33 billion. We should set the banks a task of reducing all of those mortgages by 30% to make them affordable and to prevent families from defaulting on a mortgage. If those banks reduced those mortgages by 30%, we could set the conditions and limitations on this kind of renegotiations, so that it will only be for houses worth €600,000 or less. That is not a great cost when compared with what we are doing to bail out speculators and developers, but it would address huge problems that the State will be facing in the near future.

I remember when many people - myself included - gambled on the stock market through Eircom shares. We were all encouraged to take out Eircom shares, because it was a sure thing.

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