Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

That body could outline how matters could be resolved. There is no way banks can continue to be allowed to veto an arrangement of this sort. They have proven themselves to be completely unsuitable. An independent body should have been set up to tell both parties, if necessary, in as sympathetic a way as possible to the borrower, what the right solution would be. To allow the banks to tell the borrower to take it or leave it as the alternative is bankruptcy, which is what is happening here, is completely unacceptable. It is treating those who are in vulnerable situations in the normal bullying way that banks have acted for many years and certainly since the State started allowing them such latitude.

The way to go was through an independent body. However, to introduce a Bill which, if a person chooses the bankruptcy road at the behest of the banks because they have no other choice, allows no real appeal process is very dangerous. I cannot understand why there is no appeal process. I listened to what Deputy Stanton said about the possibility of the Credit Review Office becoming an appeals process but I find that puzzling. It is more of the kind of institutionalised thinking which we are becoming very used to. The Credit Review Office is a bankers' gig and a failure. It is now being pumped up and greeted as some sort of salvation for those small businesses and borrowers who have been treated badly by their bank.

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