Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the level of mortgage repayments, negative equity and mortgage arrears is imposing a significant burden on many thousands of Irish families;

— the latest mortgage arrears statistics from the Central Bank show that the level of arrears is increasing at an accelerating rate;

— the standard variable interest rate for residential mortgages charged by State-owned Permanent TSB is substantially out of line with that charged by other mortgage providers in receipt of State support and is placing unacceptable financial pressure on the bank's variable rate customers;

— normal competitive forces which would allow customers with high mortgage costs to switch to an alternative provider are not currently present in the marketplace, effectively trapping customers with high standard variable rate mortgages;

— the Government put AIB under considerable public pressure to reduce its standard variable interest rate in line with the ECB rate reduction in November 2011 but is applying a "hands off" approach in relation to Permanent TSB;

— the lack of credit for small and medium enterprises, SMEs, is having a detrimental impact on economic activity, is impeding the country's economic recovery and is costing jobs;

— the Governor of the Central Bank has recently commented that credit conditions are tougher in Ireland for SMEs than in any other country in Europe both in terms of costs and availability;

— certain financial institutions are attaching unreasonable terms and conditions to offers of new lending to many businesses and are often making unilateral changes to the lending arrangements in place with businesses; and

— the lending performance of the banks is currently being measured by the amount of new credit sanctioned rather than the amount actually drawn down and put into circulation in the economy; and

calls on the Government:

— as the controlling shareholder in Irish Life & Permanent, to use all means possible to bring about a reduction in the standard variable interest rate being charged by Permanent TSB on its residential customers in order to bring it into line with rates being charged by other mortgage lenders in the market;

— to measure the new lending performance of the banks by the amount of credit actually drawn down and circulated in the economy rather than by loan approvals or repackaging of existing loan facilities; and

— to set out its overall implementation strategy in respect of the inter-departmental mortgage arrears working group, known as the Keane Report, and to detail all other steps it plans to take to address the escalating mortgage arrears crisis.

I propose that the time we lost at the beginning of the debate will be added at the end of this evening's proceedings.

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