Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Adams is aware that the Government has put in place a whole range of things for mortgages that are in distress. I gave some figures on this last week, I think. At the end of June this year, there were 770,610 private residential mortgage accounts. Out of those, 97,874 were in arrears of more than 90 days.

What is the position here? Clearly, the first point of engagement is between the borrower and the lender. They will not be sorted out unless there is that kind of engagement across a range of options. That is something that should be taken up by everybody.

The Deputy talked about having a sort of independent mortgage restructuring operation. Eighty thousand mortgages have been restructured already. That is an agreement between the lender and the borrower. Eighty thousand of them have been restructured. That restructuring is to be on a sustainable basis. That means that, for the borrowers, they are able to repay the agreed figure and still have, obviously, an income to spend and-----

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