Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank and congratulate Deputy Collins on bringing forward this important motion at this time. We sometimes forget when we are talking about water charges and other important issues that over 160,000 mortgages in this country are in arrears. This means that 500,000 men, women and children are living in homes with mortgages that are in arrears. This does not include the tens or hundreds of thousands more who are struggling to stay out of arrears or who have had their mortgages restructured and are not in arrears. Years into this crisis, huge numbers of men, women and children are living in these homes.

Let me give one example. I met a couple this week who are close to retirement. The husband has had to give up work for health reasons and the wife works on the minimum wage and has done so all her life. They live in Blessington, but their mortgage is in arrears and their bank has moved for possession of the house. The house is in equity, but not in significant equity. However, because of the shambles that is the mortgage-to-rent scheme, this couple cannot avail of that equity. If this couple had been fortunate enough to bank with AIB during the bubble, they would have passed its test for a split mortgage product for homes in positive equity. AIB would have given them a split mortgage with 0% interest on the warehoused portion. Then, when both reached retirement age, AIB would have done a debt-for-equity swap. It would take equity in their house and bring the remainder of their mortgage payment down to something they could pay through retirement, which would let them live and retire with dignity. When the couple passed away, AIB would have taken the portion of the home required to pay the debt. However, this couple banks with Bank of Ireland and cannot avail of the AIB solution. Instead, Bank of Ireland will evict them. It has already brought them to court and is refusing to do anything that will keep this couple in their house. Bank of Ireland does not have a split mortgage product where there is equity in a house. Even where it has a split mortgage product, it charges interest on the shelved portion, so this solution would not work anyway. Bank of Ireland does not have a debt-for-equity solution at retirement.

Therefore, this is what is about to happen. In three months' time, this couple will be pulled back into a court in Wicklow, the judge will grant possession of their house, the sheriffs will come and kick them out of their house and they will be left with just a small amount of money. Bank of Ireland will take approximately another €10,000 from them for legal fees, for having the audacity to have forced it to hire lawyers to bring them to court so as to kick them out of their house. This couple will not get rent allowance from the State because the council will say it is sorry but it cannot give an allowance as the couple has savings and does not qualify. They will be told they must spend the little bit of residual funds they have following their eviction on rent. In two or three years' time, when all that money is gone, they will show up at Wicklow County Council offices and say they are two retirees on very little income with no savings left and that they are now homeless. Wicklow County Council will tell them it has no house for them and they will then come to my office and say they are still homeless. This is what is going to happen because this couple banks with Bank of Ireland rather than with AIB.

I am not here to cheerlead for AIB, which has done both good and bad. The point is that the Government's approach from day one has been that this issue needs to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. The Government believes it is not up to it to interfere in the banking market, although it is when that market needs €64 billion of taxpayers' money. It believes it is not up to it to interfere when there is a need to protect people like this couple. Therefore, we, the Government, do not care that these people will be evicted. We do not care that other people in the country in the very same position will not be evicted because they banked with another bank. We do not care, because we do not feel it is right and proper to interfere in how the banks work. We may talk about the code of conduct on mortgage arrears, the CCMA, but is an entirely voluntary code. I have heard Ministers, who should know better, state that it is a mandatory code, but that is nonsense.

The heart of the matter is that this type of issue is arising every day. There are 500,000 men, women and children in these houses. The reason this continues in Ireland, in contrast to any other country, is that the Government continues to say, "We do not care; let the banks sort it out themselves." The only way this is going to change is if the decision-maker in government at this time is changed, because he is calling the shots.

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