Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Michael McGrath for moving the motion and providing the opportunity to debate the issue. Despite the current mortgage crisis, the Irish will continue to be a home-purchasing nation. That will not change. It is in that context that we must examine the mortgage crisis we are trying to resolve. While dealing with the crisis we must create a sustainable home-purchasing model that allows people to buy homes at an affordable level into the future. It is not just the crisis that must be fixed; we must do something for the future also. We must move the residential property market for home buyers towards normalisation. In doing so, we must stabilise our banking sector and create conditions in which banks provide loans for mortgages at appropriate income ratios and loan-to-value measures. The days of 100% mortgages must come to an end.

Over the course of this evening and tomorrow, many Members will express their frustration at how progress on the crisis has been dealt with to date. I would share that. I wish the insolvency legislation had been passed 12 months ago. I would have liked to have seen the Personal Insolvency Act up and running six months ago, but the technicalities and architecture of such legislation comes with difficulties. I am very frustrated that during the previous Administration, a wait-and-see approach was adopted at the genesis of the crisis. I remember that Mr. Hugh Cooney's preliminary report on mortgage arrears, which preceded the Keane report, was published on the day the Dáil went into its summer recess. The full report was published in November of the same year but was not debated in the House at all by Fianna Fáil. The two most significant debates which took place during the course of the last Administration were pursuant to Labour Party motions in Private Members' time. During those debates, the problem was talked down by the then Government.

The mortgage crisis can be broken into three categories. There are those who are in short-term or medium-term difficulty to whom mortgage assistance can be provided. There are those at the worst end of the spectrum for whom insolvency legislation is perhaps the only option. In some cases, those people are screaming for structured repossessions. There are people in mortgage difficulties for whom a blanket ban on repossessions would not be helpful. They include the woman who bought a one-bedroom apartment for €250,000 in Cork City which is now worth less than €100,000. She lives with her child in a one-bedroom dwelling and needs to structurally surrender it. They include the family who moved 16 miles from Cork. The parents are no longer working. They moved because the property was cheap but need now to get back into Cork city.

The Government has taken action despite its frustration. We have published the Keane report and brought forward personal insolvency legislation. Just last week, targets were set for the banks to resolve the crisis. It is not just an issue for the Minister and the Department of Finance, it is an issue for the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, other members of which are present. The joint committee will bring in the director of the Insolvency Service at the end of the second quarter. It will also be bringing in the banks regulated by the Central Bank as well as the Governor of the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator to ensure that the targets are being met. The scheduled hearings are just part of a continued programme to ensure the crisis is ultimately resolved.

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