Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To turn to the business in hand, there will be independent oversight of all these arrangements. As the Deputy knows, the Central Bank is independent in the performance of its functions and has taken on the task of helping to design these arrangements and monitoring them as they are rolled out. As well as this, it is the licensing authority for the banks and, therefore, is in best position to insist on its policies being carried out, and it will do so.

On the various reflections in the Deputy's introductory comments on the repossessions issue, the position is, as he is well aware, that since the Elizabeth Dunne judgment in 2009, there has been a lacuna in the law and there have been no compulsory repossessions. The statistics are for people handing back the keys or agreeing, by arrangement, to surrender homes, but what we are talking about is compulsory repossession. There has not been any because the law does not enable one to do this. If the level of repossession is zero and there is only one repossession in the course of next year, that will be a big increase. The Government has made it absolutely clear that there is a sequence of interventions, cascading down from interest only arrangements to repossession, but that repossession will be used only in extremis. It is not considered there will be a significant increase or a significant amount of repossessions of family homes. However, I envisage repossessions in the buy-to-let sector.

That is a different category. They are commercial investments, people are collecting rents and if they are not servicing their mortgages the best thing for the economy is that these investments are sold to people who can service them.

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