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

It knows it needs to do something but is not prepared to grasp the nettle. It introduced a personal insolvency framework that leaves a veto with banks. What kind of craziness was that? It probably knows - I hope to goodness it knows - that there is a requirement for write-down which is the only way they can become sustainable. However, it is not prepared to say that out loud and face that reality, and it is not alone. Whether the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, has torn his hair out or not is a matter for himself, but he also is not prepared to set targets for the financial institutions to instruct the banks clearly that they need to deal with these distressed mortgages and to map out an acceptable pace in which those resolutions can take place. The Government's failure is the lack of an appropriate legislative framework to free people from the nightmare in which they find themselves in unsustainable mortgage debt. The failure of the Central Bank and its Governor is in not asserting itself with the banks and to inform them clearly that it is not acceptable to us, the taxpayers, that the very banks we have bankrolled and recapitalised would snub their noses at the citizens in this way.

The Minister of State spoke about choice. There are families with no choice; those who cannot meet their mortgage repayments and go into default do not have choice. In addition, it is a source of scandal that more than 100,000 applicants are waiting to be housed by local authorities. That is much worse than even in the early years of this State. What is the Government's answer for them? It is that they should hang on a little longer or to go into rented accommodation, much of which is so below par that it is a joke.

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