Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Joan Collins and her team on bringing forward this legislation. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is the defining issue in Irish society. Hundreds of thousands of individuals are already in crisis as a result of mortgage difficulties, with tens of thousands of others waiting in the wings to join them. The question of whether our society responds to this issue effectively will define the fate of a generation.

The reality is that the measures put forward by the Government are not working. They are unsustainable and will remain so, because they avoid the central issue, namely, the massive debt that cannot be repaid and which feeds into all aspects of people's lives. There are communities all across the commuter belt, in the suburbs of Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow, where people bought homes on the back of jobs in the city centre to which they commuted. Many of these jobs are now gone and people are left unable to pay their mortgages without the services to support them. The perception is that the Government has put forward a solution which deals only with the wealthy people who, in many ways, were responsible for the crisis in the first place, including those individuals who have ended up in NAMA, while ordinary citizens are left paying their bills. There is also a perception - like the other perception I mentioned, it is a reality - that it is those struggling homeowners who have a little equity in their properties who are perhaps among the most disadvantaged in that they are the ones who are being mercilessly squeezed by the banks.

People do not want sympathy. They do not want quangos or personal insolvency mechanisms which they cannot access. They want a solution to their problems, which is what this legislation would provide. It would offer a statutory footing for the protection of the family home, not speculative properties. It points a way forward for people to be released from their debt.

It is not just a human cost to these families, as has been articulated here, but is necessary for society to recover. This is not pie in the sky but is based on the real knowledge of what happened in Norway, as Deputy Joan Collins said, and Iceland. No one is putting these forward as perfect societies, but they are in a hell of better position than Ireland. The recovery came quicker and people were able to move on with their lives. The model is simple: we value the property at market value with 10% extra. Then the negative equity is parked and if the person engages with the process for a five-year period the unsecured debt is written off and the person can move on with his or her life. The banks have been recapitalised for this. People ask why it must be them and why the people at the top can get write-offs and move on with their lives but others cannot when all they tried to do was put a roof over their family. Every Deputy has heard those stories. Unless there is a debt write-off, there cannot be movement forward.

Where one or more mortgage holders are involved, it is a disproportionate number of women who are disadvantaged. I received four phone calls to my constituency office today, all involving separated people. In all cases, the female partner was left at home with the children, with an uncooperative partner and a millstone of debt. Those people must be able to secure their homes, and I support the measures in the Bill in that regard.

What is proposed is lunacy. Before I came into the Chamber I had a conversation with a man in my constituency who had lived in his home for many years. Over the years, he had re-mortgaged the house. He worked all his life but lost his job in later years and is now in a lower-paid job. He did not have the money to enter into an arrangement with the bank for 12 months because he was too poor, so he was denied access to mortgage interest supplement because of changes introduced by the Government. Due to his inability to access mortgage interest supplement, the bank decided to move in and repossess the property because the resident could not give the bank the money. If the banks get away with that and succeed in ousting people from their homes, the consequence will be that people will be on the social housing list with nowhere to live and, lo and behold, the State will pay more in rent allowance than it needs to pay at the moment to assist people to stay in the family home. That is the lunacy of what is being proposed. It is bad social policy as well as being morally wrong for the people involved. It is incredibly destabilising.

The Government can mess around with its plans, but reality belies its efforts. The reality is that the banks are getting away with the veto and real families on the ground are being left behind. Early on, that was all right, even if it was not morally all right. The Government might have got away with it when dealing with people with mortgages in new developments. This includes people with five-year-old mortgages in ghost estates that were not integrated into the community. Now, it is affecting settled communities where people brought up their families and are rooted in the area. The Kanturk situation is an example. There will be resistance. Irish people and evictions do not go hand-in-hand. The Government is sowing the seeds of a rebellion in the country, grown out of necessity. All people are looking for is a secure roof over their family's heads. It is morally right and socially right and, based on the Bill put forward by Deputy Joan Collins, it is economically viable if the Minister pursues the Bill to the next Stage.

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