Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

Various solutions were examined by the interdepartmental group. Considering that it spanned the holiday period, I believe the group treated the matter with great urgency. It briefed the economic council and provided me with a full report before the end of September. The report would have gone to the Government yesterday except I was attending an ECOFIN meeting in Brussels. I will bring it to Government next week.

Every Deputy here is not only aware of the situation but can offer examples of people who are experiencing difficulty with their mortgages. I will not approach this on the basis of us having all the solutions. I will bring the report to the House and if Deputies on either the Government or Opposition benches offer additional proposals that I think will run, we can include them in the final draft. The idea is to bring a report to the House and to act on it quite quickly.

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