Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government is failing the tens of thousands of families in mortgage distress and on social housing waiting lists. In October, Fiona Muldoon, the head of banking regulation in the Irish Central Bank was scathing in her criticism of the bankers and their failure to address the issue of mortgage distress. This morning AIB indicated that it plans to increase its variable interest rate once more. That will directly impact on 70,000 customers. A 0.25% rise in interest rates adds €30 per month to the cost of repayments on every €200,000 borrowed. That is €30 many of these families do not have.

AIB is fully owned by the State and the Government is refusing to deal with this issue in the way it should. It seems to be fine to give €64 billion of taxpayers' money to the banks but it is not okay to help citizens in mortgage distress. Sinn Féin is of the view that the Government should intervene directly to tell AIB that its planned rate increase is not acceptable.

Fine Gael and the Labour Party came to power promising to prioritise those in mortgage distress. Instead it has abandoned them. By complete coincidence, on this very day two years ago, the Labour Party told people in mortgage distress that if it was in government, they could enjoy peace of mind. The Labour Party leader, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, said that the banks had already received thousands of millions in taxpayers money and there must be a quid pro quo, which was to give people in mortgage distress a breather. I did not make that up, it is what the current Tánaiste said. It is yet another broken promise. Today, there are more citizens than ever in mortgage distress. There are 180,000 households currently in trouble, with 115 additional homeowners falling into distress every day. I often wonder what exactly is the point of the Labour Party being part of this Government, with this Government's record?

The personal insolvency legislation will not fix this problem. It hands a veto over any personal insolvency arrangement to the banks. As long as the banks have a veto, why would they not exercise it? If the Government gives it to them, they will use it in their own self-interest.

I also want to deal briefly with the issue of social housing. The policy of the Government in depleting the social housing stock is exacerbating the crisis in housing and the numbers of citizens on waiting lists. My constituency office, like that of many other Deputies, is dealing with increasing numbers of people who have been forced to leave what was the family home. Sometimes this is because of relationship breakdown and in some cases it is due to domestic violence. These same citizens then have difficulty accessing supplementary welfare allowance or rent allowance because they are often not accepted onto local authority housing lists as they are deemed to have vested financial interests in family homes which they no longer occupy. In her long involvement in politics, I am sure the Minister of State has dealt with this herself.

There is a lack of clarity in this area and a disparity in procedures between local authorities. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government must empower and resource local authorities to effectively assess such applicants. He must set out a clear policy to deal with such applicants and establish mechanisms to allow for compassionate and psychological factors to be part of the assessment process.

In a real republic citizens would have the right to a home. This is not a real republic, as we learn every day, it is, as was said by a historian many years ago, a dictionary republic. The Labour Party, with that name, should aspire to protect citizens, safeguard their rights and ensure that they have a home. This motion proposes measures that can significantly contribute to ending the current crisis in housing. I commend it to the Dáil.

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