Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Tom Fleming for his comments. This is a matter of great concern to thousands of people all over the country. Over 110,000 problem mortgages have been restructured over the last period. The changes the Government has made in this context have been the most radical in many years in regard to bankruptcy, the establishment of the insolvency service, and the creation of the targets set by the Central Banks for banks to deal with the issue. There is a solution to the vast majority of these problems. Many people have not engaged at all with the lender in the first instance, but an issue cannot be sorted out if that does not happen.

There is a requirement on the banks to do their job and there is a requirement on the Central Bank in terms of the targets it has set. Work is being done by the Minister for Justice and Equality and the engagement of personal insolvency practitioners has been under way for quite some time. Since the law was changed to reduce the bankruptcy period from 12 years to three, there has been a dramatic shift by the banks in wanting to arrive at solutions for people with particular problems with their mortgages. It is not enough and we must do more. It is not right that so many people should have the stress and mental anguish of being afraid to get involved in sorting out the problem and just leaving it lie there. It is not for me to say that all of these can be sorted immediately, but there is a solution to the vast majority of them. The suite of options that has been put in place by Government has resulted in 110,000 mortgages being restructured.

Headway is being made as underlined by the Central Bank figures. The numbers show that mortgages that are in arrears for more than 90 days have fallen by 15,500 when compared with the start of 2004. In August 2013, there were 2,500 split mortgages put in place by the six main banks, whereas the figure is now 19,500. That shows how it is progressing. During the same period, the six main banks found permanent restructuring solutions for family homes, with an increase from 41,000 to just over 90,000. Nobody wants to see a family lose its home. The options and solutions that are there must be worked on by the different elements including the Department of Justice and Equality, the insolvency service, the banks and the other parties.

I am not happy with the progress being made on the very difficult cases. I stress that in some of these cases, people have not engaged with the lender at all. That is not going to resolve matters either. We have been working with the banks. The Tánaiste and I met with a number of insolvency practitioners last week and I expect to talk to the banks and work with the Central Bank on the targets that have been set. While the Insolvency Service of Ireland has not dealt with a great number of cases in its first year of operation, the number of applications for assistance is now rising dramatically because of the word of those who have gone through the system and had a permanent solution put in place for their mortgages.

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