Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. We are a nation laden with debt. The richest went mad with greed and borrowed multiple millions of euro to amass empires of property but they have paid little for their criminal irresponsibility. Some believed the hype they were sold by the Government and the supposed experts that the bubble would never burst and that they were fools if they did not own their homes. They stretched themselves to the limit to enter the property market and are paying the price today by being stuck in possibly unsuitable houses with mortgages in excess of current house prices. Many will be unable to pay for their homes in the lifetime of their mortgages or cannot even make next month's payment.

There is little doubt that the State, in its cavalier promotion of the bubble and its drive to make homeownership a national obsession, is greatly to blame. It has until now done nothing and, despite its many flaws, this Bill is at least welcome as a piece of work which seeks to address this serious problem. However, it is flawed. It leaves the banks in a powerful position and does not properly position the debtor, as citizen, to make arrangements to bring about a rational solution to the problem of insurmountable debt. Sinn Féin has stated clearly that an independent agency must be formed in order to manage the process of debt resolution in a humane and tailored way. As the Bill stands there will be no legal obligation on banks to accept even the most reasonable of arrangements.

This veto will, without doubt, make this Bill in some circumstances completely irrelevant. Indeed, with rumblings of memos stating that certain banks will not accept write-downs, this seems to be a certainty in many cases.

What will be done to address this matter? All the well-drafted legislation in the world can be of no use if there is a very clear get-out clause. The reality is that if the banks were going to voluntarily engage in significant debt resolution arrangements, then they would have done it. It makes sense for the banks to rationalise and address the inability of many of these mortgages to be paid, but they have not done so in sufficient cases to indicate that anything other than an independent binding process is the solution.

The shortening of the bankruptcy period is welcome and will do some good but the fact that bankruptcy causes the person to lose all their assets, including their home, is worrying. This process must also be treated in a humane fashion. Bankruptcy must no longer be the pit of despair it is in this State. In other countries, people seem to be given another chance instead of it being a brand for those who should be avoided at all costs. The period also remains quite long by comparison with the regime in the Six Counties or in England and Wales.

I work mainly on the issue of housing and I am worried by the continuing failure of the Government to shake off the desire to treat housing as a commodity. It has been treated like that for many years to our eternal detriment. However, the Government must recognise it as the most basic of needs for its people as well as recognising their right as citizens to have a home. If this Bill protects that right in some way I am glad, but the problem of people being evicted from their homes is not something on the horizon; it is happening now and has been for some time. This Bill is not a preventative measure but it is long overdue. It will do nothing for the many people who have already lost their homes and now are forced to live in privately rented accommodation, which is often of low standard and poor value.

The treatment of property as a commodity, if continued, will produce these problems again and again until a government is willing to live up to its duty to house its people as of right and to finish subsidising a private property market which takes much and gives little.

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