Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Like most Members of this House, I am extremely put out at the snail's pace of movement on the part of the banks in dealing with the mortgage arrears crisis. More than 23,500 home owners are more than two years in arrears with their mortgages, which amounts to approximately 100,000 people when we include their families. This crisis has an appalling impact on families, leading to marital strife, stress, anxiety and mental health issues. It is appalling that the banks are so unwilling to address this issue adequately. Families need certainty about their situations, something the banks are failing abjectly to provide.

AIB is owned by the State. It claims to have set up 1,400 split mortgages to ease the burden on the families concerned. I have been reliably informed by a specialist in the area that all AIB has done is to identify 1,400 mortgages that would be eligible for a split mortgage. If my information is correct, AIB is misleading at best or downright deceitful at worst and I want to challenge the CEO of AIB to provide the proof that what he has said is true and that AIB has 1,400 split mortgage procedures processed and completed.

We need long-term forbearance measures that will ease the burden on hard-pressed families. There are two options for long-term forbearance in which the banks are not engaging. It is my understanding that they are not engaging in mortgage-to-rent arrangements or debt-for-equity arrangements, the effect of which lack of engagement is putting these families in great distress.

As I understand it, the banks do not want to accept ownership of debtors' houses while residents remain as tenants. The banks must get over this hang-up and enter into proper arrangements.

As the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, will be aware, the public is appalled by the reckless way in which the banks dragged this country over a financial cliff. I ask her to insist that the CEOs of all the banks, particularly the State-owned banks, come in on a monthly basis to demonstrate how they are tackling the mortgage arrears crisis.

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