Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share time with Deputy McLellan. We have heard much about mortgages and I welcome the fact that we are debating the topic, which is one of the issues most frequently debated in Private Members' time in this Dáil. Sinn Féin tabled a Private Members' motion on the issue earlier in the year.

We have heard much about the figures. I will never forget sitting in the Seanad Chamber on 10 April 2008 when the Leader of the Seanad, Donie Cassidy, who is a former distinguished Fianna Fáil politician, rose to his feet and used his opportunity as Leader to say:

Now is the right time to buy ... We have a duty to tell first-time house buyers, young couples with no previous experience, that there is unbelievable value in the marketplace today. It will not last forever. It is never the wrong time to do the right thing. I offer the House the benefit of my experience and my opinion which is all any Member can do. I will remind the House, perhaps in 12 or 18 months, when prices have again increased by 25% or 30%, that they were told this by the Leader of the House on this historic day.

That was the Fianna Fáil Leader of the Seanad in 2008, as property prices started to go down, telling inexperienced young couples to buy houses. If one of those gullible people who listen to Donie Cassidy that day, speaking on behalf of Fianna Fáil, bought a house, the value of the house today would have dropped by 55%. That was the mantra at the time. I raise it because it is important to put a debate such as this in context. A couple of months previously, the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, came to my home county, Donegal, and told the public in comments aired on national television that those who moan and give out about the economy and the dangers in terms of house prices should go away and commit suicide. A few months later, in 2009, when we could not ignore the fact that house prices were falling drastically, Brian Cowen went to the largest selling newspaper in the State and said that prospective buyers should not be discouraged by those who seem to portray the easing in house prices in a negative way. People were sucked in by Fianna Fáil for a simple reason - the party was up to its neck with property developers in the past decade. We can see some of the judgments made in the courts today on people who were in these Houses and involved in the same kind of speculation as those who got us into this crisis.

We are in this crisis and we need to deal with the consequences of what happened over the past decade. Since the Government took office, we have seen mortgage arrears continuing to increase. The issue continues to spiral out of control. The figures for the first quarter in 2013 were very disappointing. People genuinely believed there would be some easing off or scaling back of those falling into arrears. Once more, we are rehearsing numbers that exceed 180,000 households in mortgage distress. That means one in four mortgage holders are in mortgage distress and the number in long-term arrears, of over 180 days and over 720 days, is still increasing two and a half years into the lifetime of this Government.

We heard tonight and we will hear more tomorrow about how the Government is acting. I accept the Government is taking action but I disagree these actions will solve the crisis or that they are in any way in the interests of struggling homeowners. This is a Government that justifies all actions by targets set by international capital. It is a Government terrified by the banks in the same way as the previous Government. These are the same banks the taxpayers saved and pumped billions of euro into them under Fianna Fáil when it was in government.

AIB is more or less fully owned by the people of the State but recently it increased its interest rate on variable mortgages and there was not a peep out of the Government. The Minister owns 15% of Bank of Ireland on behalf of the people but he did not raise a finger when the bank approved its CEO's take-home salary of €843,000 for a year's work. Let us not forget the Government has committed to repaying every last cent of Anglo Irish Bank debt as formal sovereign debt. It is no wonder the banks are getting their own way when they deal with mortgages. They asked to be let off the leash, the troika rode in behind them and the Government did what it always did, it crumbled and caved into the banks once again.

The Central Bank targets only force the banks to offer arrangements. The problem is that the banks can tick the boxes by offering arrangements while ramping up the tools for repossession at the same time. The troika is back in town and in its most recent report the IMF and the EU Commission focused on the issue of mortgages. They said they expected to see the three contact rule and the 12-month moratorium reviewed. As usual, they got what they wanted. There was consultation but there was always a set outcome to the big questions. The outcomes were well worked out in advance with the banks, the troika and the Government.

We must ask where the need to review the code of conduct came from. Were citizens lining up to have less protection from the banks? Who was barging down to Government buildings asking the Government to give the banks more power? The code of conduct was changed at the request of the banks and changed to suit the needs of the banks. It certainly was not changed because of any mandate Fine Gael or the Labour Party received in the last general election. On the contrary, the programme for Government is explicit on this issue. It is bad enough if I have to do tell the Government to read its programme for Government, which states "Both parties believe that more protection is needed for homeowners with distressed" and the Government committed to "introducing a two year moratorium on repossessions of modest family homes where a family makes an honest effort to pay their mortgage". Another commitment in the programme for Government was to convert the Money Advice and Budgeting Service into a strengthened personal debt management agency with strong legal powers. That, again, was ignored.

This was before the banks started dictating policy to Fine Gael and Labour. Now those commitments are out the window, the banks rule and society must pick up the tab. In line with the submissions made by many others, Sinn Féin said there needed to be an independent body outside of banking to rule on what is fair and what is not. We simply do not trust the banks. The programme for Government referred to more protection for distressed mortgage holders but today the Seanad is rushing through the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill, which will be enacted next month.

I welcome the aspect of the motion that deals with the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill. However, let us call a spade a spade. The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill was introduced in 2009 and allowed for repossessions of family homes. Deputies Michael McGrath, Micheál Martin and Éamon Ó Cuív and every other Fianna Fáil Member at the time voted for it. It was only because of clever lawyers and a couple of individuals taking on Start Mortgages that they found a loophole in the Fianna Fáil legislation that prevented repossessions taking place. Let us be under no illusions. In 2009, when property prices were crashing, the Bill was introduced by Fianna Fáil and allowed for family home repossessions. The jury is out on whether Fianna Fáil is serious and whether it would scrap the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill if in government but the words have not yet been echoed by Fianna Fáil. The Bill will remove the Dunne judgment which, although not an ideal means of guarding the family home for borrowers, meant that some sort of protection has existed for borrowers in distress. Sinn Féin tabled many amendments to the Bill, which could have given a level playing field. We could have given the court the power to decide whether the banks were being reasonable or just playing the game but the Government said "No". The Government has no time for fairness for homeowners and has made up its mind. The Government is with the banks, regardless of the social consequences.

Taken together, the new code of conduct and the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill constitute a co-ordinated attack on struggling homeowners. They are part of a plan to make it easier to repossess family homes. In the amendment tabled by Sinn Féin to the motion, we focus on the here and now and what needs to be done to protect the one in four mortgage holders who are in distress. The Minister can and should direct the Central Bank to suspend the revised elements of the code of conduct. The Minister for Justice and Equality must allow cool heads to prevail and let the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill wait in the shadows for the time being. In short, the Government must take a step back and consider once more what it is doing. This should be done immediately to ease the pressure on those who are struggling. Does the Government want to be remembered as the one which made evictions from the family home a fact of modern life? It is a question all Government Members must consider.

There is much more I could say on the issue. We need a serious solution for those in arrears. Part of a solution must be write-downs of unsustainable mortgages on a case-by-case basis and part of it must be an economic policy which seeks to grow the economy, not to shrink it. It is time to row back. The Government has had two and a half years and its approach is not working. Things are getting worse.

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