Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Pearse Doherty and his Sinn Féin colleagues for tabling the motion. As previous speakers said, it is scandalous that significant numbers of families lost their homes because of the practice of multiple banks to fail to give them the tracker rates to which they were entitled. It is shocking that the banks moved against these families on the basis of their inability to pay at mortgage rates that they should not have had to pay at. As we have heard, immeasurable anxiety and hardship were needlessly suffered by over 11,000 families, perhaps up to 15,000, in these circumstances.

The measures being proposed in the motion are absolutely correct and I support them fully. People need compensation and redress. The investigation has to be concluded and the banks that acted in this manner need to be held to account. We need to get to the bottom of how all of this happened in the first place and ensure it will not happen again. There must be severe penalties for financial institutions that can impose this needless suffering.

As I said, I agree completely with the motion. I do not have the same expertise on this issue as Deputies Pearse Doherty and Michael McGrath who have been following it at committee level, but I cannot help having an enormous sense of frustration that all of this has been done by the financial institutions we bailed out. This is one of multiple wrongs these banks have done to mortgage holders and the more general population as a result of what happened in 2008, which resulted from their greed for profit. It is difficult not to conclude that the immoral greed for profit of these institutions which propelled the entire economy over the cliff almost a decade ago is also the reason this specific issue has arisen. Even now, eight years on, up to 15,000 families are suffering needlessly.

The Central Bank has still not got to the bottom of the matter and the Government is standing idly by. It is allowing the issue to drag on, while the suffering continues. I cannot help feeling extraordinary frustration about the Government's failure to act as we suggested when the crash hit. Many mortgage holders are still in mortgage arrears and being threatened with repossession as a result of the Government's refusal to nationalise the banks we bailed out. Rather than taking control of the banks we bailed out which are continuing to inflict this suffering, the Minister is standing back and saying it is the responsibility of the Central Bank to act and that he can do nothing about the commercial activities of the banks.

I agree 100% with the motion. Frankly, everything that has happened in this case and more generally makes clear the need to fundamentally change the banking model and take banks into proper public ownership.

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