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

As the Minister knows, the Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS, of which Ulster Bank is a part, has a global restructuring group. The likelihood is that the mortgage loans of ordinary householders will be put onto the international marketplace, in the same way as happened in respect of the former Irish Nationwide mortgage holders, to be snapped up by vulture capitalists. Does the Minister not see that the same problems and fears that we discussed earlier in respect of the mortgage holders now in the grasp of IBRC can be repeated in this instance? When the chief executive officer of Ulster Bank was before the finance committee, I found him distinctly unsympathetic towards mortgage holders in arrears in some of his comments. Were the chief executives of Ulster Bank and RBS among those the Minister met? Did they give him any indication of what the future holds for the ordinary mortgage holders currently with them?

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