Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak in this debate. I compliment Deputy Michael McGrath for bringing the matter before the House. This is a very emotive issue, one that affects an awful lot of people throughout the length and breadth of the country. Many people have felt assailed in the past number of years and have been under the cosh when it comes to meeting their financial commitments, particularly their mortgage repayments.

We know the argument about tracker versus variable rates and we know the banks have been in a bad place for the past number of years. However, we also know the taxpayer came to the rescue of the banks, rightly or wrongly, and the people made a huge effort to ensure the banks were able to trade again. I am not blaming anybody for what happened previously, but that was a huge sacrifice. Following that, it behoves the lending institutions to bear in mind that maybe not all of the borrowers were happy in the past five years either, that they may have gone through bad times and they may have had illness, lost their jobs or suffered various deprivations too numerous to mention. We have all dealt with constituents in this area.

It is now time for the lending institutions to look again a little more sympathetically at their borrowers and to try to offer them something that is within their capacity to pay, for example, they might pay the norm of one third of disposable income without any moral hazard being incurred. At the same time, the banks should look at a packaging of the balance the borrowers may not be able to resolve at this stage until it is possible to do so. In that way, everybody shares the burden: the borrower shares the burden on the basis that he or she takes longer to repay the loan; and the lender shares the burden on the basis that it takes longer to have the entire loan repaid, and it may have to be restructured in another way.

One thing is certain. The lending institutions must have due regard for the changed circumstances, which are as follows. Having made the huge sacrifices they have made, the people, the taxpayers of Ireland, need to be given recognition for these efforts. Without that recognition, the situation becomes intolerable. It goes without saying that in the time in which we live, if the banks were not to respond sympathetically to the situation, public confidence in the system would be eroded.

I again thank my colleagues across the House for bringing the matter before us. I believe there is general agreement in the way Members on all sides of the House look at this issue. It is important that the lending institutions are in profit. That is their job, as they are supposed to provide lending facilities for the community at large. At the same time, however, they need to have regard to the needs of the borrowers.

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