Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In recent exchanges with the banks at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform a very stubborn approach to struggling families has been taken, particularly by Bank of Ireland. Its approach has become clear once more. Mr. Boucher of Bank of Ireland has claimed he is not aware of a single case in which his bank wrote down mortgage debt. He has suggested the bank has voted in favour of personal insolvency arrangements in 45 cases. The committee asked him to supply information on whether any of these cases involved the write-down of mortgage debt. Two weeks later we are still awaiting the information. It is clear that Bank of Ireland has a policy of not supporting any personal insolvency arrangement that involves a write-down of mortgage debt. The Taoiseach said in the House two weeks ago that "there is, as yet, no definitive evidence of banks vetoing proposals." To what degree are the banks playing ball with the legislation introduced by these Houses?

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