John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was contacted by a lady in recent days who told me how utterly humiliated she felt when she heard the details of the new personal insolvency service guidelines published in last weekend's press. The lady and her husband have both taken a massive drop in salary in recent years and, on foot of this, were forced to restructure their mortgage. So-called luxuries such as Sky TV, health insurance and so on are long gone for this couple. They have not had a foreign holiday since before they were married. Their second car is not a luxury but a necessity. A significant proportion of their income goes on child care.

This family, which has used up all of its personal savings and borrowed from family members, was already being kept awake at night with worry. Now, they have the added pressure of hearing rumours that one of them may be forced to give up work. This family is in arrears with its mortgage because there are some months it cannot afford to pay the full amount so it just pays as much as it can spare. These ordinary hardworking individuals are driven to distraction by the condescending attempt on the part of the Government to throw them to the wolves.

The lady asked me what next, a question I want to put to the Taoiseach. If the banks have a quarterly target of restructuring mortgages of 20,000, as has been reported, and it transpires a large proportion of the 95,000 householders in mortgage arrears have already made severe cutbacks to their family spending, what will the banks target then? Will it be the second television, mobile phone or laptop?

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