Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Due to the manner in which the Taoiseach responded, I may have stumbled upon a way to get him to answer the question I asked. I asked him about families in mortgage distress and he responded about credit for small and medium businesses. Perhaps if I had asked him about credit for small and medium businesses, he would have answered my question about families in mortgage distress.

I accept the point the Taoiseach made about the small and medium business sector and the need for credit for that sector. The theory now is that the people now own the banks. This cost €60 billion of taxpayers' money. The Central Bank revealed that 107,708 mortgage holders were in serious distress at the end of 2011. This means that 92 families fell into mortgage distress every day towards the end of 2011. In other words, almost 100 families fell into mortgage distress every day from September to December 2011. My question is straightforward. Did the Taoiseach raise the issue of the need for the banks to reach sustainable agreements with these struggling mortgage holders? Either he did or did not. If he did, what was the banks' response?

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