Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Government has already intervened to address the issue of mortgage arrears, which is one of the biggest problems facing many householders. In many cases, those in mortgage arrears bought homes at the height of the property bubble. The Deputy will recall that there was a property bubble during the lifetime of the Government in which he served, the result of which is that many are now stuck with high mortgages which they are finding difficult to pay. To address this problem, the Government has put in place the personal insolvency legislation which reduces to three years the period of time for personal insolvency and a range of non-judicial personal insolvency settlement methods. That system came into operation at the beginning of 2013. Some 8,000 cases of arrears have since been addressed by the putting in place of various settlements. However, there is a lot more to be done. The Government continues to encourage the financial institutions to speed up the process and reach settlements with people in mortgage arrears in order that they can get on with their lives and have certainty about where they are in terms of their mortgage difficulties. There is no doubt but that the announcement by AIB and the EBS that they propose to increase their standard variable interest rate mortgage is bad news for mortgage holders. However, the Deputy will be aware that is a commercial decision made by the two institutions.

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