Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

Deputy Ó Snodaigh spoke about the criteria. Clearly the mortgage interest supplement is a very restrictive supplement given that a person must be working for less than 30 hours a week, and I know there are proposals to go slightly further than that. For people working up to 30 hours a week for 11 months, those in most trouble will be those whose mortgagers have a big interest element - mainly those who have taken out mortgages in recent years. Have the banks agreed to buy into this? If they have not, the criteria will be really important. A person, who goes back into full-time employment after 11 months and with whom the bank has not engaged, may end up in more extreme difficulty than would have been the case if he or she had got the kind of support we are discussing. We can all think of such cases. If this provision is put in the Bill, will checks and balances be put in place before the Bill is signed into law or is it something that will come into effect immediately?

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