Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

We know we are in a recession the like of which this State has never experienced previously due to poor governance in the past. The factors involved were lack of regulation and poor and lax policy, which saw the housing boom and bust wreck our economy, and we have yet to see what will be the far-reaching social consequences of that impact on our society.

In the three minutes available to me I will focus on the mortgages, which is an area that is at the forefront in my clinics and when I meet people generally. We all know very many of our people are in mortgage arrears and negative equity. Approximately 780,000 people have owner occupier mortgage accounts. The three types of mortgage difficulties identified by the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, are mortgages in short-term difficulty, the ones that are viable and in medium term difficulty, and the unviable mortgages. Those are a significant challenge but I am glad they have been prioritised by the Government from the first day we came into office.

I welcome the establishment of the Inter-Departmental Mortgage Arrears Working Group and look forward to the implementation of that group's recommendations by the implementation teams. I was interested to read about some of the recommendations including the mortgage to rent scheme, the provision of the independent mortgages advice, and the development of sustainable options by the banks to prevent their customers slipping into delinquent mortgage situations.

I welcome the putting in place of the code of conduct on mortgage lending, which brings us back to basics in terms of giving loans to people who can afford them. It is a simple, basic rule that we were all taught by our parents but, unfortunately, it was lost when bank lending, driven by commission, brought us to where we are now. The consumers in this case are badly served. The type of responsible lending we depended on the banks to provide did not happen and I look forward to us returning to that. We must be able to ensure the people who borrow are able to repay their loans.

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