Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The inescapable reality is that the Taoiseach has no real appreciation of the huge crisis and distress in the lives of so many of our people as a result of unsustainable mortgages. Over the ten-year criminal property bubble, a generation of young people were blackmailed into paying prices for the simple human right of a roof over their heads, the level of which has now imprisoned them. With the number of crisis mortgages having doubled under this Administration, as the previous Administration did, putting forward that it has reduced somewhat, to just 80,000, as a major step forward does not in any way recognise that these are 80,000 individuals, or often families, who are hugely distressed.

The Government has come up with no alternative of a sustainable variety that would provide a quick way out for those in distress. In his reply, the Taoiseach was at pains in referring to the 13,000 IBRC mortgages to look out for the interests of creditors, or in other words, the financiers that are involved. Their interests have always been put first.

Is the Taoiseach in any way ashamed that his Government is handing over 13,000 individuals and families to vulture funds from God knows where? Despite what he said, these people do not and will not have guarantees if the mortgages are bought by outside interests based in the United States. Is it not the case that those home owners could be subjected, for example, to increases in interest rates and put under intolerable pressure with regard to repossession by means of threats or debt collection agencies pursuing them if the vulture fund wants to change or implement a sell-off in the portfolio?

Is it not quite shocking that as far as the Fine Gael and Labour Government is concerned, the financial institutions, bondholders and the hedge funds which were up to their necks in creating the financial gambling casino that was the international financial markets in the ten or 15 years to 2008 - a cabal that reaped obscene profits on the backs of vulnerable mortgage holders-----

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