Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank Deputies for their contributions. I wish to reiterate that this year the Department will spend more than €50 million, which in one sense will be for distressed mortgage holders, in mortgage interest. In fact, however, it is €50 million that goes to the banks. We could all have a debate about the wisdom of that, but basically an individual comes to the Department or MABS and gets into a mortgage arrears resolution process. To answer Deputy Mattie McGrath's point, we want lenders to go into the mortgage arrears resolution process because it means there will be a stop on the interest while one reaches an agreement with the banks about how to deal with the level of debt.

I have personally met at length with the Vincentian Partnership which has done quite a lot of work on fair living arrangements. I hope the banks would not suggest that people should live on less than the social welfare rate. As regards the case the Deputy is referring to, the issue is about people who have more means and how much they can afford to contribute. The rule on debtors was stressed by FLAC recently and I agree. If an arrangement is made that is too onerous on the debtor, and Deputy McGrath referred in particular to people in business, one is looking for blood from a stone as the debtor cannot pay that much. Most such agreements fail within a period of time because they are unrealistic. The mortgage arrears resolution process and the process about which we heard at the FLAC conference relating to other countries is about arriving at a reasonable amount. The Vincentian Partnership has done a great deal of work on suggesting guidelines on this which I believe it will put on the Internet. Deputy McGrath might be interested to know this work is based on what a family in a rural area might require because of transport requirements versus what a family in an urban area might require where there might be more access to public transport.

The object is for the Department to help people in mortgage arrears but also to force lenders to engage in the mortgage arrears process. Otherwise we will just be handing out money without any requirement for engagement and this does not make sense. I understand that Deputy Boyd Barrett is very sympathetic to giving out the maximum amount of money but money is very tight in this country. The €50 million we will distribute will come from people at work and we want to ensure we get value from the lenders in the mortgage arrears process. We do not have free amounts of €50 million to distribute nor do we have the money to distribute larger and larger amounts to banks. We need to give it in a way that helps people and keeps them in their family home.

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