Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----and house prices were in a bubble. Of course we know that at a certain stage the banks stopped offering tracker deals. I am sure Deputy McGrath will be happy to acknowledge that it was very much on his party's watch that when the tracker deals ended the people who came after that period faced variable rates.

There are times in financial structures when a fixed rate can militate against borrowers and this has been proved in Irish financial history. There are times when variable rates can offer advantages and disadvantages. The critical point is that the banks should return to normal operational capacities and do what banks should do which is to offer funding and reliable sources of funding to people who have the financial resources and the employment and income structures which will allow them to borrow and to borrow at a reasonable cost rate.

As the Deputy said, the recent move by AIB to bring back competition to the variable rate market is extremely welcome. I hope it is a move by the banks towards a more competitive offering on mortgage costs because this is critical for people.

The banks are working their way through their collapse. The new managing director of PIMCO said at a recent conference in Kilkenny how foolish and misguided was Fianna Fáil's fatally flawed bank guarantee, which he maintains, destroyed the economic capacity of the country. Unfortunately, the banks are still in a recovery situation but I hope that they will now move to more competitive offerings on mortgage charges of all kinds but in particular on interest charges for current borrowers and for those anxious to purchase a family home, of which there are many, thankfully.

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