Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)

There are roughly 100,000 distressed mortgages in the State, with €1 billion in arrears owed. Some 8.1% or 62,970 mortgages are 90 days or more behind with payments. The average amount of the arrears is just over €17,000. There are 46,371 mortgages in arrears for over 180 days. The average arrears in these cases is approximately €21,000.

The director of FLAC said that the number of distressed mortgages has increased by 55% in the past year. People are in massive arrears and struggling to pay their mortgages. Many simply cannot. Local authority housing policy dictates that if a person voluntarily surrenders their home, they are not accepted as having a housing need and so are not placed on a housing list. Through this, they are barred from access to such services as the rental accommodation scheme, or RAS, rent supplement and voluntary housing.

This may make some sense in discouraging people who do not have a housing need from surrendering their home and clogging up the massive housing waiting lists when they can afford to pay their mortgages themselves. However, given the extraordinary situation for many mortgage holders, this means that in order to ensure they are deemed to have a housing need in the case of being unable to pay their mortgage, they are forced to have their home repossessed at a cost to the State through court time instead of giving up their home when it was obvious that their mortgage was untenable. This is not speculation; it is happening.

The Government needs to explore how it will deal with cases such as this, thereby avoiding court costs and not forcing people to go to court when they should be able to give up the home they cannot pay for and have a recognised housing need. Of course, this would have to be a delicate, measured approach so as not to encourage those who can pay to give up their debt in favour of social housing or rent supplement.

For many of these families, becoming homeless would be and has been a complete shock to their system and way of life. Families are also being forced to move away from areas where their roots have been established and their children have been placed in schools and creche. These are also being penalised with the result of further marginalisation and the problems it brings as well as the stresses it incurs. It is very important that the message is got out that due to financial hardship, people will not be abandoned or penalised. Local authorities should be instructed to examine each case and if it is established there is a genuine case, this impediment should be lifted.

The State has a both a moral and an ethical responsibility. A large number of 450,000 people in this category are unemployed through no fault of their own.

Families should not be penalised because of our economic woes and the Celtic tiger era pressure that forced many families and individuals to take out the unsustainable mortgages which are the bedrock of our problem today.

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