Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have great sympathy for anyone in the circumstances outlined by the Deputy but I do not have the information she has so I cannot comment in detail on the case. What I know from the general principle is that the banks engage and that they have restructured 121,000 mortgages, which is proof of their engagement. They are making significant progress and for 13 consecutive quarters the number of mortgages in difficulty has gone down. Some of that is because of restructuring by the banks and some of it is because the economy is moving strongly and when people go back to work they re-engage and make their own arrangements because they have an income again to service the mortgage.

The Abhaile scheme to which the Deputy refers and for which she was largely responsible is very important. The amendments to the mortgage-to-rent scheme will make the mortgage-to-rent process quicker, more transparent, easier to navigate for borrowers and ultimately more accessible to more households in mortgage distress.  Mortgage distress is also important. A variation on that of which the Deputy is probably aware is that the Department of Housing, Planning Community and Local Government is now examining the possibility of putting a fund together to purchase houses where there are mortgage difficulties and renting them back to the mortgage holder so that the local authority would no longer be the intermediary and that there would be a more efficient way of implementing the mortgage-to-rent scheme.

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