Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this motion. I compliment Deputy Ciarán Lynch on its introduction. This is one of the most important and practical motions to be placed before the House for many years and the Government should embrace it in its totality. There should be no ifs, buts or maybes. The Government should not hide behind the concept of the voluntary code of conduct for banks and credit institutions that was put in place last February. The gap between something that is voluntary and something that is statutory is as wide as the Gap of Dunloe. It means nothing. One could drive a coach and four through it.

The spectre of repossession of and consequent eviction from one's home is an horrific prospect for anybody, in particular the families involved. It leaves an indelible footprint on a person's mind and is an experience one never forgets. I know of a family who emigrated in 1965. I sought them out some 30 years later and spoke to the children, with some of whom I had attended school. The spectre of emigration is once again raising its head. We will be in severe dereliction of duty if we do not address it. For this reason, the Government should embrace the motion before the House.

During the debate on NAMA, I stated that it must definitively end the notion of housing as a speculative asset rather than a basic social need. This debased approach has left us with more than 50,000 people on the housing waiting list while there are thousands of unsold houses in many towns and villages. Weeds are growing through their windows and the builders are being rescued by NAMA. If NAMA is to have the support of the taxpayers who fund it, we must ensure a social dividend for the wider community commensurate with the normal sums of taxpayers' money necessary to fund it.

Of concern to the Labour Party and many people we encounter on the streets or in our clinics is the significant increase in the number of people, in particular young people, who paid exorbitant or unsustainable prices for their homes. They now find themselves unable to meet their loan commitments and in the zone of negative equity. People say to me that there is no form of NAMA for people who find themselves in that position. There is no NAMA to deal with the type of dilemma in which these people find themselves.

It would be a significant dereliction of the duty of this House if the banks were not required, as part of the conditions for receiving the unprecedented injection of taxpayers' cash, to recognise the difficulties these people are now in and to devise appropriate measures and schemes tailored to ensure that their homes will not be subject to repossession orders. The banks have a recognisably defined obligation in this regard as set out so eloquently tonight by Deputy Ciarán Lynch. It will be some kick in the teeth to taxpayers and the public if, as soon as the President signs the NAMA legislation into law, there is a frenzy of court applications for repossessions because unfortunate people have defaulted on their loans.

This motion is not about people who deliberately refrain from honouring their commitments. We all know there are people who engage in that process. This is about people whose luck has run out and who find themselves on hard times. I do not know whether the Government has given any consideration to the motion. The Minister of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh, is in the House, but where is the Minister with responsibility in this area who should be here to debate the motion?

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