Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the opportunity to speak to the issue and I welcome the fact that it has been raised again. Achieving a realistic and workable debt resolution between debtors and creditors has been a priority for this Government and the banks have not responded sufficiently. Then again, it is easy to criticise and we can be very good at doing that at times. It took much time and skill to put together a potential solution. Everybody must come together to engage with banks and try to achieve a solution; it is incumbent on everybody involved in this to engage because without such engagement, the process will go nowhere.

For the vast majority of taxpayers who finance the banks, those institutions must provide viable solutions to maintain family homes. Well before the last election I proposed that a percentage of mortgages be parked and, feeding into the Keane report, this would essentially be a split mortgage product. With this, a person who can only afford to pay interest on the principal would have the amount calculated relative to what he or she can afford. The balance would be parked and dealt with down the road but debt would not be crystallised and nobody would be evicted from a home. This would be based on the principle of the there Fs of fixture of tenure, fair rent and freedom to sell. Sometimes solutions come in many guises.

I do not like the manner in which the proposed legislation would leave the debtor's representative with the choice of what should be paid, as the creditor must have a say in the process. When we speak of debt, we must remember the core and non-core debt of businesses. We cannot just exclusively speak of people with mortgages, as people in business have an iron in the fire, employing many people while being burdened with much debt. We must examine the non-core aspects, which are like an anchor sinking viable businesses.

Many people here are looking to a short-term solution but the solution has to be long term and viable. Looking at a debtor book in business, each separate person is dealt with differently, with different rates of interest charged based on past performance. This process must work in much the same way. When people talk about a future bailout, people must engage and if money is required in future, it should go to those who engaged in the first place. I disagree with the idea of handing money straight to the banks; it has to go to provide solutions. Nobody wants to see a family home go. Many second homes need to be repossessed as they are holding down the market. Nevertheless, many people have taken to the notion that they will not pay anything. People must pay a mortgage or rent as there is a duty to pay something.

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