Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not pretend to be an expert in this field. I am fortunate to have no personal experience of having to go through this awful process. The Minister of State referred to his constituency workload and the number of people who have sought his advice on this matter. For every elected representative, it is an issue that is continually arising. Indeed, housing is probably the greatest single source of difficulty for people at this time. This Bill represents a fair and reasonable compromise for addressing some of these issues. There is a responsibility on everybody elected to this House to legislate for the positive changes we undertook to introduce.

The finance committee heard this week that the four main banks have issued 30,034 letters relating to repossessions and voluntary surrenders. It is a frightening figure. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly pointed out that 175,000 mortgages are already in distress. Moreover, as he pointed out, the actual figure is probably significantly higher. Deputy Timmy Dooley would probably say that a lot has been done and a lot more needs to be done. The Minister of State is saying that his Government has brought forward legislation to try to fix the problem.

However, the number of families who are coming to us seeking help shows the problem is not fixed and there is very little clarity. At a public meeting in Rathfarnham which I organised with one of our local candidates, Sarah Holland, people waited until the end of the meeting to speak to us privately about the difficulties they are experiencing. Many of them referred to a lack of support, clarity and a pathway to resolution. The lack of equality in the system as between lender and borrower and the lack of engagement by the former were a source of concern. Other people at the meeting were not in a mortgage arrears situation but were asking how they might secure social housing or get on the rental accommodation scheme. That was the picture of the housing situation that emerged from the meeting.

In St. Dominic's in Tallaght the local candidate in the European Parliament elections, Lynn Boylan, was present. Those present who had been through the system spoke about their experiences. Deputy Pearse Doherty was also present and outlined what was included in the Bill. People revealed intimate details of the mountain they had to climb. Options were outlined and reference was made to various groups that could help in dealing with the situation. Others said they had gone to the groups but they had not been of any help either and asked to whom they could turn. They go to meetings hoping to pick up information that might shine a light, indicate some way to help them to get away from the mountain of debt or find a mechanism by which they could solve the problem.

We are not living in normal times. The housing market is not normal. There is a shortage of houses in Dublin. The worry is that more and more houses will be put up for sale and that the only ones who will come out on top again are the banks that originally gave the mortgages. Many perceive the banks as having created a significant part of the crisis. There is no comfort in the Bill for borrowers who do not make an attempt to pay back their loans or engage in the process. The priority of the Bill is to keep people in their homes and protect the family home. Let us consider the options for those who lose their homes. From experience we know that social housing is not an option in Dublin. The waiting time for such housing in the Dublin City Council area is nine years and probably longer. In South Dublin County Council it is probably eight years.

Rents are increasing and there is great difficulty in the rental market. The rent supplement scheme is not fit for purpose in the Dublin area as it does not meet existing demands. The rental accommodation scheme, RAS, also has many problems, especially in the case of large families. I recently dealt with a family with five children who are not allowed to rent a three-bedroom house as it would be considered to be overcrowded. They are being put out of their home on that basis. Their options are to move into a hostel, bed and breakfast accommodation or a hotel. They are currently in a three-bedroom house but require a four-bedroom house because of their size. However, the option offered by the State is to force them into one bedroom or, possibly, avail of the dormitory option in a hostel, a hotel room or one bedroom in bed and breakfast accommodation. The system cannot adapt to meet the need and no compromise appears to be available.

The Government signed the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act into law which removed legal protection for the family home. We all accept that the protection offered was not ideal. It was blanket protection based on a legal loophole. Nevertheless, by removing it without a sufficient legal replacement the Government was consciously – or perhaps unconsciously - opening the door to more repossessions. That has been the result of the legislation. The Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, is more than familiar with the figures for the letters sent by the banks. The family home requires extra protection and that is the direction in which the Bill points us. We must level the playing field between the banks and homeowners by making repossession of the family home a less attractive option for the banks. We must equalise the situation and ensure greater equality between homeowners and the banks.

Deputy Pearse Doherty’s aim is that the banks should take certain information into account on a statutory basis. The Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, said this would fetter the courts in some way in adjudicating on the matter. The aim of the Bill is to set parameters and send a signal to the courts about what we want to happen. We want the courts to consider all options. From the information we have received, we are aware this might happen in some cases but not in others. That is the difficulty. The Bill would set parameters for the courts, but it would also create a balance. It would make it compulsory for the courts to consider whether the lender had complied with the code of conduct on mortgage arrears which had been put on a clear legal basis for the first time. The Bill would empower the courts to perform a reasonableness test on whether the banks had exhausted all possible options, including whether it had declined any proposal from a personal insolvency practitioner and complied with the code of conduct on mortgage arrears.

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