Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Mortgage Restructuring Arrangement Bill and commend Deputy Joan Collins for her work on it. It gives us an opportunity to debate what is a very important and extremely serious issue. Sinn Féin welcomes the Bill. Clearly, the Government's hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach is failing pathetically. The concept behind the Bill is laudable, namely, that the family home must be protected in law. Fine Gael and the Labour Party have taken the opposite approach and removed whatever protection was provided previously. However, we are concerned by how much the Bill relies on the structure of the Personal Insolvency Act as its basis. The Act is barely alive and already there are many obvious problems with it. It has become clear that a public insolvency service would have made more sense and would have been better suited to meeting the needs of citizens rather than financial experts and the banks. A study carried out by Grant Thornton Debt Solutions showed that only one in seven struggling mortgage holders was in a position to benefit from the new personal insolvency arrangements. In other words, the Government's great solution is a dud if one has a mortgage.

There may be a role for Deputy Joan Collin's Bill in the solution to the mortgage crisis. Any measure that protects the family home and assists those trying to pay their way is to be commended and should be fully considered. There are reports that the troika is discussing fast-track repossessions in the case of buy-to-let properties. The primary concern must be to ensure tenants' rights are fully respected and that tenants are not made to pay for a defaulting landlord.

Sinn Féin has presented its proposals, too. Our approach is to put it up to the banks. The Government has been played for a fool by the banks time after time. With the troika egging it on, it has rolled out the banks' agenda. We saw the revision of the code of conduct on mortgage arrears to suit the banks. We saw the Government remove the Dunne judgment, with no attempt being made to replace it with any other safeguard. Now the banks are so cocky that they can appear before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and state baldly that they are surpassing the Government's targets by relying on repossession letters. They can do this because they know the Government is on their side.

At its heart, the Bill seeks to remove the banks' veto over insolvency and mortgage arrangements. This is an admirable objective and one Sinn Féin fully supports. However, the removal of the veto would ultimately rely on the courts. Sinn Féin would rather see a mortgage restructuring panel, democratically accountable to the Minister, empowered to force the banks into reasonable arrangements. We believe the banks must face reality. We have already seen that this does not come easily to them. The people bailed out the banks, but now they are sitting on that money, while trying to squeeze blood out of a stone in the case of many families across the State.

The mortgage crisis continues to be out of control and the Government's actions have, arguably, made it worse for many in arrears. It is time to take power from the banks. It is time for a solution that would protect the family home and implement fair, sustainable solutions on a case-by-case basis.

Again, I thank Deputy Joan Collins for bringing forward the Bill and commend her for her work.

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