Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)

I certainly agree with that last point. There is only a circle of losers when that happens. I am not disputing what the Deputy has said, as he has the experience locally. The review group will be reporting in the next couple of weeks. It will be brought to Cabinet fairly soon, and will be published, so I am hopeful that will take place in the next couple of weeks.

I note the Deputy's comments on the shared ownership loans. It is going up in the rental situation, so the gap is widening. The most important piece of advice for any borrower facing difficulties and meeting repayments is to engage early and proactively with the lender to seek to achieve an agreed solution. I think Deputy Stanley might agree with me that local authorities have long led the way in dealing proactively and sympathetically with mortgages. I know that sympathy does not fill the jar, but the level of repossessions by local authorities is at the bottom of the list, although they have risen recently. They can and do exercise the powers available to them and endeavour in all arrears cases to engage proactively and constructively with a distressed borrower, with the aim of enabling a household to remain in their own home. That is the best solution if it can be achieved. If people are forced to leave their home owing to default issues, then the problem is only being transferred from one aspect of Government expenditure to another one. There is no real gain involved.

The available data suggest that repossession, where it does occur, is always a last resort. My Department issued guidelines last year based on the regulator's code of conduct on mortgage arrears to reflect the Central Bank's revised code of conduct, which replaced the previous code on 1 January 2011, and which was informed by the deliberation of the expert group on mortgage arrears and personal debt. My Department is updating guidelines to local authorities, in consultation with the city and county managers. I am hopeful these will be issued soon. That is another input, but other more significant inputs are required to alleviate the situation so adequately set out by Deputy Stanley.

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