Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Wall for raising this important matter. First, it is important to put on record once more that the Government is extremely conscious of the high value Irish people place on home ownership. The Government has brought forward a range of measures to support and protect families having difficulties with their home mortgage payments. The single most important advice for any borrower facing difficulties in meeting repayments, whether his or her mortgage is with a local authority or otherwise, is to engage early, proactively and constructively with his or her lender to seek to achieve an agreed solution. To date there is no evidence to suggest that wider economic circumstances are creating problems specifically for local authority borrowers in meeting mortgage repayments. The local authority service indicators for 2008, published in June 2009, show local authority mortgage arrears levels running at 11.7%, a marginal increase on the level in 2007, which stood at 11.6%.

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