Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The negative equity generation has fared very poorly under the Government which refuses to make child care affordable, while reducing child benefit. It forces people to pay property tax on their debts, while claiming it is a tax on wealth. It taxes on the double those who have become accidental landlords. It denies families the right to bid on their own mortgages, while selling these mortgages to US-based vulture funds. To date, the insolvency service has processed only approximately 50 cases because the Government gave the banks a veto over all proceedings. The result is that over 175,000 mortgages are in arrears. For three years the Government has allowed the banks to ride roughshod over these individuals and families. The only thing it has done is set targets for the banks to make offers of “sustainable” restructures, but it has let the banks define “sustainable”.

In advance of the hearings of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform this week, the banks have submitted their latest figures to the end of the year for these so-called sustainable restructures. The good news is that they have hit the Government’s targets. The bad news concerns how they have done so. As of 1 January, approximately 57,000 offers had been made, of which a total of 52,000 do not include any financial concession from the banks whatsoever, in spite of the people making €7.5 billion available to them to deal with the mortgage crisis. Approximately 18,000 of the offers made will increase the amount the mortgage holders will pay to the banks over the course of the mortgages. Approximately 5,000 are so-called voluntary surrenders. As of 1 January, approximately 22,000 of these so-called offers of sustainable restructures were the subject of legal proceedings. That figure will have increased significantly since 1 January. I recall Fine Gael stating during the general election campaign that it would help the negative equity generation. Instead it has abandoned it. It has hiked people's taxes to pay for the sins of the bankers, while allowing the banks to squeeze those in mortgage arrears for every cent they have. When they do not have any more, they go into arrears and the Government lets the banks do as they please. Is the Taoiseach satisfied with these targets, with how the banks have hit them and that 22,000 cases of legal proceedings count as sustainable offers of mortgage restructuring?

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