Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this.

I welcome the Bill from the Technical Group. This has been one of the most pressing issues that this Government, or any Government, would probably ever have to face.

The crux of this problem is we now know that the targets have been set for the banks and, as anyone listening to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform in the past couple of weeks will have heard, they are hitting their targets without difficulty. The real problem with all of this is in determining what is a sustainable solution. It is easy to offer a deal and say that one has done that part, and that achieves one's percentage target, but what will be the sustainable solution for these individuals to restart their lives? We must remember that such individuals who cannot pay their mortgages are not really living. They are not spending. Towns in mainly rural constituencies such as Galway East, for instance, Loughrey, Tuam and Athenry, are starving because such individuals in these areas are not spending.

Another problem we must face up to is it is easy to give the banks a kicking. We, on both sides of the House, have done it for the past number of years. It goes down well with the public. We all understand we need a banking sector of some sort but the point about it is the banks must remember they are only there because taxpayers' money bailed them out.

The other problem we have is this issue of writing off significant amounts of debt. I suppose the elephant in the room is that if we start writing down significant amounts of debt on all of these issues, while it may solve the problem for the person involved, will we eventually have to come back and bail out these banks again with more public money due to the debt that they are in? The other side of that is these banks are kept there by the mortgage holders and there is an obligation on the banks to get them out of these problems. It always goes back to the importance of sustainable solutions.

As other speakers said, people raise local issues with me. The biggest issue is the manner in which the banks deal with individual customers. A constituent of mine was repaying her mortgage by putting money into the bank at the end of every week. After three months she received a letter and a call from the bank to say she was in mortgage arrears and that the bank had not received mortgage repayments for the past three months. The bank said the payments may have been lost or mislaid by the bank. The very unnecessary strain on this person is unacceptable. Thankfully, she had receipts to prove that she had indeed lodged the money into those bank accounts.

There is an onus on the banks to solve these problems but the solutions must be sustainable and must allow for people to stay in their homes. We bailed out the banks and we do not want to do it again. They must provide mortgage-holders with a sustainable solution so that they can kick-start their lives again.

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