Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would be very pleased if he did but I am asking the Minister, and the Government, as the majority shareholder in AIB, how is it acceptable for a bank that the public owns to write off all this debt while the banks, under pressure from the troika and facilitated by the Government, are being allowed to repossess the homes of people who cannot make their mortgage repayments. The reason most of those people cannot make their mortgage payments is because their incomes have been slashed or they have lost their jobs as a result of circumstances beyond their control. Where is the leeway for them?

Why did the Minister not at least hold this back? The only argument he has put forward is about moral hazard, that there must be some power for the lender-----

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