Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last week, at a Dublin Chamber of Commerce function, I stated publicly there was no demonstrable evidence of a functioning banking system in the country and that the banks were not doing enough. Deputy Martin is only too well aware that the Government had to restructure and recapitalise the banks, change the boards and remove the perks. The Government has had regular meetings with the banks through the Economic Management Council. The regulator requires the banks to submit to the Central Bank their forbearance schemes to deal with mortgages and persons in distress covering a range of issues from mortgage to lease, mortgage to let, mortgage to rent and split mortgages. It is a fact that the Government would like the banks to sit down and conclude arrangements in every case on a bilateral basis. This facility is there and the banks have been advised, encouraged and pressurised to do so. I wrote to the regulator last year and advised him that if he needed further powers to act with regard to the banks, the Government would give him those powers. The regulator replied that he did not at that stage require further powers.

The Deputy is incorrect to say it was a public servant who first mentioned debt write-off. The Minister for Justice and Equality on Committee Stage of the Personal Insolvency Bill made this very point. I note the points made by Ms Muldoon and the Secretary General, Mr. Moran, and the comments of the Governor of the Central Bank. The message to the banks is that they are in a position to sit down and negotiate on a range of areas with persons with personal debt, in mortgage distress or in arrears. The personal insolvency legislation will be in operation by 1 March which means if banks do not settle on a bilateral basis with their clients, these clients will have recourse to new measures to reach agreement on their problems through the insolvency agency. The legislation will allow for debt write-down. Banks have an opportunity. They have been recapitalised and they have been well advised to sit down on a bilateral basis with their clients and I hope they do so. What the public servants said yesterday follows what the Government has been saying for quite some time. It is time to move and demonstrate that their powers, the range of the facilities under the code of conduct and recapitalisation mean they have the capacity to sit down with every individual and work out an individual solution. If they do not do this, the insolvency system will kick in on 1 March.

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