Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are 300,000 households on variable interest rates. Only 700 people switched their mortgages to date this year. That is minimal. People do not switch because of the charges associated with switching, legal fees, valuation and other professional fees that are involved. People in negative equity and those in mortgage arrears cannot change because no financial institution wants to deal with them. The Minister has the power to instruct the Central Bank to intervene. Intervention is needed.

The legislation we proposed was balanced correctly because it acknowledged the obvious need for the banks to be profitable but it also acknowledged the rights of consumers to be treated fairly because they are not being treated fairly. The Minister talked about the difficulties the banks have gone through but AIB recently announced that it raised €750 million at a cost of 0.66% per year. It is able to raise money at an extraordinarily low interest rate but it is charging 3.6% to hard pressed struggling families. They should not be the ones left to shoulder the responsibility and help dig the banks out of the mess they created for themselves.

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