Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

There is unquestionably a mortgage crisis and no one can see clearly where or when it will come to an end. It is certain that if it is not addressed comprehensively, effectively and very soon, many more people will be forced into poverty and homelessness. We will see more repossessions of homes and more families forced to make the choice between paying the mortgage and buying food or essential medication.

Throughout the country families are looking forward to the festive season, albeit several weeks away, not in anticipation but with trepidation. I have much evidence of this already. Tens of thousands of families are in what can only be called mortgage slavery. Houses and apartments purchased at grossly inflated Celtic tiger prices are now in negative equity and the purchasers are chained to massive mortgages that swallow up their ever decreasing incomes. The consequences for individuals and families are devastating, while the consequences for the wider economy and society are deeply damaging, as disposable income disappears into the black hole of mortgage debt. This is a direct result of the deliberate inflation of the property bubble by previous Governments and the free for all unregulated market in land, property development, construction and loans that prevailed in that era of madness – that is what it was – known as the Celtic tiger. Many were taken in by it, understandably so. For tens of thousands of young people, the opportunity to get on the so-called property ladder had come and they grabbed it with both hands. The regulators who should have protected them were negligent in the extreme, asleep on their watch. Given that background, there is a great moral obligation on the State to move heaven and earth to support those who, through no fault of their own, have been plunged into what I have described as mortgage slavery. Instead of our witnessing its meeting of this obligation, we find half-hearted milk and water measures or no action being taken at all.

The Keane report is a bitter disappointment. Once again, it represents a cringing approach to the banks, a genuflection to the board rooms, yet many of the grossly overpaid culprits are still in positions of power. The report rules out increasing the mortgage supplement and extending mortgage interest relief. A legally empowered debt management agency is also ruled out. There is nothing to protect mortgage holders from ECB interest rate increases. There is little or nothing to protect them, yet the Fine Gael-Labour Party programme for Government claims that on 25 February 2011 "a democratic revolution took place in Ireland". It speaks of new hope and states "a new Government, guided by the needs of the many rather than the greed of the few, can make a real, positive difference in your life." I presume these stirring words were inserted by the Labour Party drafters, but they turn to dust when one sees what precious little hope is offered to those in mortgage slavery.

It is not that there was a lack of positive and constructive proposals from many quarters to address this crisis. The new Government invited such proposals but has, sadly, paid scant attention to them. From the beginning, Sinn Féin has called for thorough and radical measures. This was reaffirmed at our party's Ard-Fheis last month in Belfast, at which we pointed to the rapidly growing number of mortgage holders in distress and the serious impact of mortgage distress on families, local economies and the financial stability of the national economy. We called unanimously for the establishment of independent statutory distressed mortgage resolution processes in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, the purpose of which would be: to reach a legally binding resolution of mortgage distress on a case by case basis; to protect the family home through a variety of measures, including loss sharing, shared equity and transferring tenure type to social renting; to enable those unable to remain in the family home to downsize or transfer to more sustainable mortgage arrangements via short sales or property-mortgage swaps; to protect the taxpayer by ensuring mortgage lenders and inter-bank commercial lenders share a portion of the burden involved in the problem of mortgage distress; and to implement the Law Reform Commission's recommendations on the reform of the bankruptcy laws to enable people to make a fresh start if formal bankruptcy is the only way of addressing their mortgage distress. These are real, concrete and far-reaching proposals and to introduce and implement them would require an unprecedented level of political resolve and strong, resolute leadership. Are the Fine Gael and Labour Party Members familiar with these words? They should be because they are the words used in the construction of the programme for Government.

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