Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

Let nobody misunderstand what I am doing.

There is no need to repeat what Deputy Fleming has said, but it is important to point out that people want us to talk about this. I compliment the Labour Party and Deputy Burton on putting down the motion, because it gives us an opportunity to talk about something about which people want us to talk. I accompanied a Tallaght businessman to a meeting with a banker in the city. I jokingly said to the banker that he was in a profession that was less popular than my own. That is the reality and people want it to be corrected. I would have thought that bankers should understand that.

These issues have been raised in other places in this House. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs, under the chairmanship of Deputy Healy Rae, has held a number of hearings over the past few months on issues that fall within the remit of this debate. The Opposition spokespersons, Deputy Enright and Deputy Shortall, have been involved in those discussions. I am Vice Chairman of the committee, and in December we sent correspondence to the Minister and to the party spokespersons on finance. It followed a presentation to the Joint Oireachtas by officials from the EBS, when we were very anxious to get a hold of their proposals and their vision on mortgage arrears. I hope they will get back to us and tell us precisely what they feel about those proposals.

We are all politicians and we all have our political perspectives. There will always be differences and we will sometimes need to dot the i's and cross the t's, but I hope that we all have concerns about those families in our communities who suddenly find themselves in seriously challenging positions. People who were quite comfortable until fairly recently, suddenly have challenging issues facing them. They have to go to the local social welfare office and the CWO. They have serious issues relating to their mortgages and other expenses. The Government should be concerned about these things. They are nearly as serious as security. I hear everybody saying that the first priority of the Government must be the security of its people. Security does not just mean keeping us safe from terrorism. It also means keeping us safe from everything else that will affect families. It is a fact that people are being affected by the current situation, particularly in respect of mortgages. Families are often finding it quite a struggle to deal with these issues.

I have been made redundant in my lifetime, and I am now dealing with constituents who have those same difficulties. They want to know from politicians what is being done about it. People are saying to us that there should be some process where the Government looks at the difficulties encountered by families. Something should be done about assisting families. We know that there is huge demand on local services in our communities. MABS is doing a great job under a lot of pressure. Workers from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in every community can tell us what they have had to do in recent times. We all have tried to help. I was involved in a number of initiatives with other colleagues over Christmas where the society had to respond in an even more difficult way than it ever did before. People's homes and livelihoods are being threatened, and I think they will look at this debate and ask what will be done about the bankers. There is much politics flying around in this debate and I suspect there will be more to come in the next 40 minutes, but people want to know what will be done to assist them. Everybody is saying - even on the Opposition benches - that things will improve and the recession will be over, but in the meantime people are suffering.

A number of initiatives have been taken by the Government in recent times on general banking issues, including the introduction of a bank guarantee scheme in September 2008 that covered seven institutions, including branches overseas in certain subsidiaries. Other colleagues have spoken about the recapitalisation of a number of banks, and it is fair enough to talk about that in this debate. A new code of conduct on mortgage arrears took effect on 27 February 2009, and a new code of conduct on business lending took effect last March. These things should be reviewed again, because we have found in the past year that things are changing more rapidly than ever. People want to continue to review these matters and to develop good ideas across political parties. I do not have a difficulty listening to good ideas proposed by colleagues from other parties. I hope the Government will continue to adopt an open approach in these difficult times by considering these matters. If the telephone ringing in the Chamber is for me, I will conclude.

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