Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Given the time constraint, I wish to focus on one aspect, which I consider to be an omission in the Private Members' Bill. Like the previous speaker, I welcome the legislation on this matter, regardless of whether it is was introduced by Sinn Féin or any other Member. It is good for the Opposition to continuously highlight this issue. The number of people who are in real trouble in terms of the severity of mortgage debt is relatively small and that is not diminish the issue. However, that must be said and we should be honest about that in the debate. People talk about the issue in general terms as if everyone who has a mortgage in this country is under seize but that is a lie. They are not. Some people are and it should be the duty of those of us, irrespective of to which side of the House we were, to do something in terms of legislation to make it easy for them. One aspect of the Private Members' amendment legislation with which I have an issue is the blanket assumption that everyone who has a mortgage is an ordinary home owner; they are not. At the peak of the boom in this housing market in 2006 120,000 houses were built and half of them were built by landlords. I would be concerned if anyone was suggesting that this Parliament should commit to a scheme that would aid landlords. A breakdown of the figures of the number of people in mortgage debt shows that almost 20% of them are landlords and some of them are multilandlords. We have listened to a dish of it, I am not referring to the Sinn Féin Members on this occasion but to some of the earlier speakers who spoke about this. We had the spectacle last year of one of the members of the highly Technical Group who out in south Dublin sympathising with somebody who had been put out of their mansion who it transpired owned 21 houses. I did not come in here to support people who have 21 houses; I came in here to support people who have genuine difficulties with their mortgage.

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