Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The extensive leaks from the report of the Keane group on distressed mortgages will be greeted with bitter disappointment by the 95,000 homeowners in mortgage difficulties, of whom 40,000 or more are in arrears of more than six months. While there may be a few speculators among these, the vast majority are victims of the greed of developers and Irish bankers, facilitated by European bankers and speculators. They gouged from ordinary workers who needed a home those obscene prices and the massive monthly mortgages are now creating a major crisis as workers lose their jobs and experience draconian cuts to their incomes, including budget cuts, causing enormous distress and mental suffering.

The Taoiseach knows that but the Keane report tinkers around the problem, offering guidelines to banks, which are "strongly encouraged" to follow them. Is it serious that the very institutions that were central to the profiteering and speculation that caused this crisis are now largely being looked at to resolve it? Their victims are now being thrown to the tender mercies of the banks. It is like sending a bunch of marauding foxes that had raided a henhouse back to give mouth to mouth resuscitation to their victims. Is the Government going to tolerate this situation?

Is it not clear that the substance to a solution is to revise downwards the blackmail prices people were forced to pay for their homes to real value of today and to calibrate downward the monthly repayments so workers can resume meeting their commitments and stay in their homes? These people were victims of these conspirators for profit, supported by the Government. Indeed, Fine Gael was very quiet on the speculation that was going on. Can the Taoiseach look home-owning taxpayers in the eye and say that the Government will not allow any write-down of what is tied around their necks when three weeks from now, he will authorise a €700 million payment to an unsecured Anglo Irish Bank bondholder, with €3.5 billion to be paid by the end of June? What will the Government do? Was this discussed this morning and what was the Taoiseach's decision?

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