Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

At Clonmel court last Thursday, there were 30 such repossession cases and the same is happening in every courthouse right across this country. At the same time, thousands of Irish homes have been sold to foreign landlords. The Irish Nationwide Building Society non-performing loan book is being sold at knock down prices to American vulture capitalists Loan Star and Oakland Capital. What have they immediately done? Their first action was to appoint Pepper of Australia as debt payment enforcers. The holders of these mortgages, who are the home owners, were not even allowed to bid for them. At the same time, the Government is allowing senior bankers to give each other and other rich friends huge secret write-downs using money borrowed by the State and supplied to the banks, when unemployed and low income families who owe as little as €20,000 on their homes are being bullied out of their homes or they are being repossessed. The banks have sole discretion on write-downs using State supplied money.

What did the vultures pay for the former Irish Nationwide Building Society loan book? Will the Taoiseach bring forward immediately legislation to protect these and other mortgage holders from arbitrary interest rate increases and repossessions? Will he bring forward legislation to bring complete transparency to the write-down process? Will the Government ban confidentiality clauses in that process? Finally, will the Government put in place fair, legally enforceable criteria for that write-down process?

See this speech in context