Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

Our banking system is responsible for many of the difficulties in which people have found themselves because the banks lent excessively and recklessly in many cases. We must ensure they now recognise it is not in the interests of householders, the country or banks for us to have a huge scale of closures of mortgages on family homes. As we said in the revised programme for Government, we will take up initiatives such as those that have existed in places like the United States or the United Kingdom. Such mechanisms might include those whereby the banks, rather than foreclosing on a property, would consider a debt equity swap. They could take an equity share in the property and in that way avoid families having to leave their homes.

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