Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In common with others I welcome the debate and I give credit to Deputy Michael McGrath for raising the issue. It is not simply a matter of welcoming the debate. This type of debate is necessary and it should be repeated given what has happened to our economy in the past ten years or less. We need to learn the lessons whether in respect of relying on one particular industry - I am referring to the expansion of the building industry and its subsequent collapse - or otherwise. The other aspect is the entire collapse of the banking system. This is the type of debate that, rightly, highlights the wrongs of the past. Like many other people, I believe we can learn from these things. I believe we should take the banks into consideration such that mistakes are not repeated in future.

More important, as legislators we should concern ourselves with the consumers or bank customers who are mortgage holders. Given the age we live in, any householder with a mortgage or any citizen of the State has access to information. One of the great assets of living in such a technological age is that people can compare interest rates on a screen as well as every other aspect of banking not only in the domestic market but throughout any part of Europe. Such developments have led to frustration among customers.

I listened to Deputy McGrath last night. It is one of these things. Apart from unemployment within the household, the next most obvious problem that causes distress is the issue of a person who has a substantial mortgage specifically, given what this debate is about, one with a standard variable rate. Every Deputy will have experienced this in his clinics. There is a belief among those who have standard variable rate mortgages that they are being cheated in some way and that the thing is not right. As legislators, we should do something about it. I am with them in their point of view because this impacts on families very negatively. It causes dreadful distress and we have a responsibility in this area. People believe that there is an unfairness, especially given what has happened in recent times. Banks have been subject to a good deal of kicking by politicians and consumers, and rightly so, given what has happened. There is a great deal of distrust, a belief that there is an unfairness to the whole situation and a belief that banks have the upper hand all the time.

I listened to some of the debate last night and some of the views were repeated earlier. Reference was made to the independence of the commercial operators, the banking institutions.

As I said at the beginning we must learn about what got us to the point where we are having this debate tonight. We are having this debate because of what happened in recent years. We must not repeat these mistakes. I do not think we should and it would be wrong of us as legislators to do so. We have a duty to consumers and householders to ensure this does not happen.

I was listening to the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, last night. I do not disagree with him but he made a particular comment on the Central Bank. I have my own view about the Central Bank given its role in and around the period of the collapse. The Minister of State, Deputy Harris, made a particular remark last night and I am keen to refer to it because I have reservations about it. He stated: "The Central Bank has no statutory role in the setting of interest rates by financial institutions, apart from the interest rate cap imposed on the credit union sector." If the extent of our control as a parliament over the Central Bank amounts to its ability to go chasing around putting restrictions on credit unions, it does not say much for the Central Bank. Perhaps we should be looking in other directions.

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