Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The spiralling mortgage crisis across Ireland has consumed countless families. While struggling to make ends meet and keep their heads above water, they must now confront the real possibility that their family home might be repossessed. This is thanks to last year's legislation from the Government dealing with the Dunne judgement. The continued crisis represents a personal tragedy for those families caught in the mire of debt and a grave economic challenge for the country.

Fianna Fáil supports the Bill, which will afford a greater degree of protection to homeowners against what is in effect a home repossessions Act introduced by the Government last year. This Bill makes a number of changes to the land conveyancing legislation introduced by the Government in 2013 to enable banks to repossess the homes of struggling homeowners across the country. The Government's original legislation compounded the impact of a deeply flawed personal insolvency process that tilts the balance of power completely in favour of the banks at the expense of the ordinary mortgage holder. We now need to address the impact of the Act on struggling homeowners.

If there was any doubt about the need to legislate, those of us who had the opportunity to hear the responses from the financial institutions in recent days at the finance committee were painted the stark financial picture facing many mortgage holders and homeowners, mainly through no fault of their own. It is right and appropriate that this legislation be given the consideration it deserves. Given the Minister of State's response, however, it seems unlikely that the Government is of a mind to address in a real way the struggles of the families in question.

This debate over home repossessions is taking place at a time when some banks that are partially owned by the taxpayer are paying their chief executives in excess of €500,000, while Government legislation removes the protection homeowners expect in order to keep the roof over their heads, which one would have thought was a basic principle. This issue is not without complications. Many of those whose homes will be repossessed by financial institutions will need the State to house them. It is not as if there will not be a cost to the State in addition to the cost already borne by the taxpayer. The Minister for Finance was somewhat disingenuous during Leaders' Questions this week when he seemed to suggest that, if the Opposition spoke out on behalf of those who were burdened by debt and whose homes were repossessed, we would be ignoring the role of the general taxpayer. He referred to his obligation to look after the general taxpayer. The fact of the matter is that the taxpayer has already provided the financial institutions with the capacity to meet their losses. In doing so everyone's expectation was that the banks would be in a position to sustain a certain level of write-downs. Deputy Pearse Doherty was right in that Bank of Ireland made it clear at a meeting of the finance committee this week that, regardless of the difference between what was owed and what would be realised in a forced sale, it would follow these families and individuals for the rest of their lives.

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