Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The Financial Regulator figures show that 55,763 mortgages were in arrears for more than 90 days at the end of June this year. Some 69,837 residential mortgages are categorised as restructured, including interest-only payment plans and, of these, 30,442 are also in arrears. Some 95,158 residential mortgages are in arrears of more than 90 days or have been restructured. This represents 12% of residential mortgage holders in some form of mortgage distress. These are serious facts. Rent supplement claims have increased from 63,658 to 96,809 applications. Mortgage interest supplement claims have increased from 5,212 to an incredible 18,564. Almost 100,000 families are on social housing waiting lists, twice the number that were on the lists in 2008, only three years ago.

This is not simply a mortgage crisis; it is a full-blown housing crisis. There is no other way to describe it. I have never stood up and I will not stand up here and use the opportunity to have a go. Were the Government to introduce effective measures to address this crisis and support families and individuals or simply to hold to the measures to which it has committed, it would have my and my party's wholehearted support and acknowledgment but if it fails to do so we will continue to pursue it until it takes the urgent and extensive action which, clearly, is required.

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