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

There have been thousands of evictions. As I said to the Minister, a total of 1,088 orders were granted in the first nine months of this year, and the number is going to increase. Let us be clear about it: this figure is going to increase before the end of the year.

The Minister is probably the only person in the House who believes that voluntary surrenders are indeed voluntary. Voluntary surrender amounts to the banks saying to mortgage holders that they should sign up and hand over the house or else the bank will take them to court, take the houses from them anyway and they will have other bills on top of everything else in future. That is what voluntary surrender is about. There is no question of giving up the family home being the best option for families. Thousands of people are losing family homes and the number is increasing dramatically. There has been a 400% increase in the past four years.

The Minister's analysis in terms of how we got here is grand. The question is what we are going to do now for these families. For example, in June 2012, the Minister introduced the approved housing body mortgage-to-rent scheme, a scheme that was supposed to solve many of the problems. Since then, only 119 households have availed of the scheme. That amounts to a little over 0.1% of all families in mortgage arrears at the moment.

These issues can be addressed. The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform produced a report in June 2014 with numerous recommendations. How many of these recommendations has the Minister introduced? I welcome the fact that the Government will reduce the bankruptcy term from three years to one year. However, we have taken the Government kicking, dragging and screaming to the reality that this needs to be done. Again, it will be done before the end of the year. There is no urgency to deal with these families in severe mortgage difficulty who are looking for the Government to assist them. The Government continues to assist only the banks in this regard.

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