Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I have heard from one constituent who is contemplating moving to a garden shed at the back of his sister's house, such is the financial pressure on him. This is not right and it is appalling. Others have told me that they want to stay in their home and they want to pay their bills but they need some assistance to do so. Keeping people in their homes must be the cornerstone of our efforts to tackle this problem while freeing up household incomes to service mortgage debt and to get money circulating in the economy once again. Losing homes will not benefit anyone.

The credit institutions who were so helpful in lending money whether it could be afforded, must now take a collegial approach by assisting customers to restructure where possible in order to repay their loans. Restructuring will not work for everyone and the challenge for both the Government and society is to provide help for those who need it while being cognisant of our scarce resources.

To this end, some of the recommendations in the Keane report have merit. The suggested mortgage to rent schemes in which approved housing are involved and leasing to local authorities, are interesting proposals which could provide support to more than 10,000 households. I look forward to the Minister of State, Deputy Penrose's pilot proposals. Trade-down mortgages, split mortgages and sale by agreement, all have their merits but each mortgage problem must be considered on a case-by-case basis. I am most interested in hearing the views of the banks about these proposals.

I commend MABS, the money advice and budgeting service, on its excellent work in assisting people to deal with their finances while acknowledging that the Keane report considers that a more specialised mortgage advocacy service is needed. The Minister for Justice and Equality has undertaken extensive work on a personal insolvency Bill to tackle the current problems of bankruptcy and personal insolvency law without which we cannot solve the mortgage arrears problem. I also look forward to the implementation strategy which will be set out at the conclusion of this debate by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Justice and Equality to assist those in difficult mortgage situations.

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