Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to support this Bill and I welcome the fact that it is not being opposed by the Government, but it needs to go to Committee Stage quickly if there is a genuine desire to do something about this issue. Along with some other members of the Technical Group, I first met a group of Irish Nationwide Building Society mortgage holders last October after they had received their letters. They were very concerned and there was a feeling of powerlessness among them. Through no fault of their own and behind closed doors, decisions were being made on their behalf. They felt their own Government was not protecting them. The talk was that this was being done in the common good to protect the taxpayer. They see a great contrast between the negotiation of very large debts directly and the selling of smaller debts such as mortgages - although they are large debts for the individual - in bundles. They feel moral hazard is something for the little guy only, and one cannot blame them for feeling that.

Last February the Minister told us it was critically important that deposit holders, mortgage account holders and those indebted to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation understood that their situation, following the liquidation, should generally remain unchanged. He came back and said their circumstances very much depended on who bought the loan book.

We must look at this from a practical perspective. If people end up encouraged or forced to leave their homes because they have a huge debt, it will become the responsibility of the State to house them while people in the US and elsewhere will be laughing all the way to the bank. They will have won on two counts. First, they will have bought these loans very cheaply and second, they will have secured a return in a market that is on the way up. We will be left in a situation where, in a housing crisis, the State will have to house yet more families, on top of the 90,000 that are on the housing waiting lists at the moment.

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