Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the Minister's absence, there was a telling number of Fine Gael and Labour backbenchers who came here tonight and last night and agreed with the Fianna Fáil motion as tabled by Deputy Michael McGrath. I wonder would they do the same in the Minister's presence, as the benches are now empty. In any event, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we will see if they turn up later to support our motion. I do not believe they will but the Minister should take time to read exactly what those Members said.

We are in highway robbery territory with what the banks are doing with variable rate mortgage account holders. There is a man fronting the newest political quango who previously presented a television programme called "Rip-Off Republic", and unfortunately we are getting into that space again. The banks are engaged in ripping off this republic. I was astonished this morning when the Taoiseach stated proudly that the banks were profitable again and claimed this as an achievement. That sends out the wrong message. Speaker after speaker has argued that the Taoiseach and the Government cannot engage in managing banks and dictating variable interest rates. Surely he has an opinion about this, and if he does not, he has enough advisers around him who are paid well enough to form an opinion for the Taoiseach and have him articulate it. We need to see leadership on this issue. There is a critical mass of people who are stuck because of this problem.

In his comments I would like the Minister to address issues concerning the Insolvency Service of Ireland and the abject rate of take-up in that service, as well as any proposal for the bank veto in negotiations. That is the elephant in the room for people suffering distress because of mortgage payments and who are trying to negotiate with bankers. Will the Minister comment on bankruptcy? The three-year term is not working and there is a farcical position as people have the ability to travel for less than two hours and go to the UK for this purpose. We all know plenty of people who have taken bankruptcy tourism into the nearest jurisdiction. We must seriously take that on board and review the three-year term downwards.

I recently had a private conversation with a fairly senior manager in AIB who is based not in Dublin or Limerick but Cork. I will not name that person but he told me that the game with banks and his bank in particular is to restrict lending of money to house and property developers. They are trying to manage the supply of units and particularly new units on the market. They want to force up supply of existing housing stock units available to the market. In fairness, "Prime Time Investigates" had a programme about this at some stage in the past two weeks and independently examined the issue. We must seriously consider that matter as the owners of AIB. The manager told me that privately.

The evidence is out there and it was backed up by RTE's "Prime Time Investigates" programme.

Like me, the Minister is from Limerick, and he knows there was a repossession court hearing recently at which up to 219 cases were heard. I attended the court, as did Deputy O'Dea, and it was a sad spectacle. I compliment the registrar, Pat Wallace, on the way he dealt sensitively with the hardship of the people who presented before him, which was telling. He is doing a great job. Many issues flowed from it, in particular the number of people who presented at the court that day who had never heard of the Insolvency Service of Ireland, ISI. Mr. Wallace asked every one of them about it. One of the support groups, the Irish Mortgage Holders' Association, had a table in the court on the day and were handing out their information. It was very telling that person after person who presented there with cases of the hardest type to listen to was unaware that the ISI was available. It was obviously because the financial institutions that brought them there had not pointed them in that direction.

There are lessons to be learnt. If any message goes out from tonight's debate, it is that the Government must take the issue of variable interest rate reductions seriously. They must be passed on. Allowing the banks to profit on the backs of people at every hand's turn is not good for the country. We must take this on board and the Government must follow the lead of some of its backbenchers, if it will not follow the lead of Deputy Michael McGrath.

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