Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is important that the Economic Management Council, EMC, engages continually with the banks. Yesterday, we got the news that Bank of Ireland has hiked its interest rate by half a percentage point. The net effect of this is that people who are just about meeting their mortgages are put under huge pressure and moved into the terrain of mortgage distress. Without warning and without any increase in the ECB rates people received letters yesterday telling them that the rate had increased by half a percentage point. That means, for instance, that someone with a €200,000 mortgage will be paying approximately €50 more per month. That is an additional €600 each year which people have to find. Has the Taoiseach or the EMC been in contact with Bank of Ireland on this issue? Did he know it was going to happen? Did the EMC realise this was about to happen?

If it has not been in contact with the bank or met its representatives, when does it propose to do so?

I presume that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, have been present at all of the meetings of the Cabinet sub-committee on health. Were the proposed cuts of €130 million announced by the HSE but, one presumes, dreamed up by the Taoiseach's Administration dealt with by the sub-committee? Were the cuts relating to personal assistants and home care packages and hours discussed and cleared by it? Is the Taoiseach in a position to indicate whether the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Róisín Shortall, attends or makes contributions to meetings of the sub-committee?

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