Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

I strongly support the motion before the House. What Permanent TSB is doing is straightforward rent seeking. Its variable rates are several percentage points higher than those of the other State owned banks. The variable rate mortgage holders are being squeezed again and again to pay the losses of professional investors, the bondholders. The Taoiseach said in Davos that what happened here was that people simply went mad borrowing. The late Brian Lenihan said, "Let us be fair, we all partied". These people did not go mad borrowing. They did not party. They worked hard, saved their money and bought small properties in which to raise their families. The Government and the banks said at the time this was sensible.

This is the negative equity generation. These are the people in Ireland in their 30s and 40s. They hold nearly 90% of the negative equity in this country. They have growing families, but they cannot move to more suitable homes. If they lose their jobs or they want to seek more productive employment, they cannot do so, because they cannot move out of their homes. They have used up their savings to try to stay out of arrears. We now know that one in ten of these mortgage holders have arrears of more than 90 days. If we continue to move at the current rate, we will reach one in four in less than two years. These people are experiencing deprivation. In the past five years, deprivation in Ireland has doubled. This group of people accounts for 91% of that increase. The unemployment rate for this group of people has gone from 5% to 15%. It has trebled in the same time.

The Irish people own this bank. It is not enough for the Government to say that it will not or cannot act to help these people.

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