Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the end of the day, the person who borrowed borrowed from a lender. A personal insolvency practitioner, if it is necessary to go through the insolvency agency, will sit down with the people and work through all of the options. This is independent.

The banks may disagree with that, but the end of that line is bankruptcy where they get nothing. It is therefore in the interests of lenders to work out an acceptable and agreed sustainable solution. By that I do not just mean putting it on interest free for another few years. That is not sustainable in the longer term. It is necessary to give the insolvency agency a period to see how effective it is. It has worked well in other jurisdictions and there is no reason why it should not work well here. The evidence is that, of the 80,000 that have been restructured, almost 7% clearly seem to be on a path of sustainability, which is in the interests of the borrowers who are living in the houses. Obviously it is an agreed position with the lenders, be they mainline banks or whatever.

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