Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The important aspect here is to be able to work out a solution for those who have a mortgage problem. The first issue is that there should be engagement between those who have borrowed and those who have lent. There is no point in having a situation where there is no engagement between them, which has been a feature of some of these cases. It will not go away. It is better to be dealt with. It has got to be dealt with by sitting down with the borrower to work out, based on the circumstances of each of them, what is the position. It is in the best interests of debtors and creditors to conclude an acceptable bilateral agreement, be it under the Personal Insolvency Act 2012, by debt settlement arrangement or by personal insolvency arrangement, and that can only be worked out when they sit down and talk to each other.

Clearly, the personal insolvency arrangement is of particular importance to those who are experiencing difficulties with repayment of their mortgages and will provide in the vast majority of cases a restructuring of their debt, although there are some cases that will emerge, the evidence of which we will see as the personal insolvency agency deals with increasing numbers of cases coming through, of clients who do not have any means, in which cases, obviously, one must find some solution. The creditor must consider carefully what the debtor's best options are and if the creditor uses refusal on that basis, it knows that it has no consideration if the person decides to go through to bankruptcy. Where this has applied in similar circumstances in other jurisdictions, the vast majority get worked out to a solution that is deemed to be, as they say, "sustainable". It would be in the interests of everybody, as the banks will be aware, to cut a deal to settle through the personal insolvency agency and avoid having to go the bankruptcy route where the banks lose heavily. That is why it is important that the other suite of measures that have been put in place by the Government should be explored by engagement between the borrower and the lender so that these matters can be worked out.

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