Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This week, the CEO of AIB announced that further mortgage interest rate hikes were on the way. Every quarter of a per cent rise in interest rates adds €30 per month to the cost of repayments for every €200,000 borrowed. This increase will affect 70,000 AIB variable interest rate mortgage customers directly, and the move is likely to be followed by other banks, as has been the trend in recent times.

This move will push more people into mortgage arrears. The Tánaiste knows that AIB is State-owned, with the people owning 99.8% of it, and that it has received €21 billion of taxpayers' money. What is the Government going to do about this?

What has happened to the Labour Party's commitment that it will help home owners weather the recession? Two years ago yesterday, the Tánaiste launched the Labour Party plan for distressed mortgages and household debt. Two years ago, he told families that if the Labour Party was in government, they would enjoy peace of mind and that banks had already received hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money and there must be a quid pro quofor those in mortgage distress so that they would be given a breather. What has happened to those promises? Since then, billions more have been given to the banks, the numbers in mortgage distress have doubled and the Master of the High Court has claimed people struggling with mortgage distress are committing suicide. Since then, 180,000 families have found themselves facing mortgage distress, which is one in every four mortgage holders. Where is the breather and the peace of mind the Labour Party promised these families?

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