Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

All Deputies and public representatives have met people who are in mortgage arrears. For people in that situation, their whole demeanour is despair. They are like ghosts. They cannot deal with issues. They close their windows and blinds during the day so no one from the bank can see into the house or see whether they are there. Many of those who are suffering in this situation feel they are being followed. They become seriously ill. I have dealt with a number of households in this situation. When we did manage to get deals for them like mortgage to rent, it was like a new person was walking in the door. It was like seeing someone go through grief.

We have to remember this when we are in discussions and debates. We are not just talking about 80,000 mortgages in arrears or whatever. We are talking about real people, real families, real children, trying to deal with probably the most horrendous situation they have ever faced. These people did not find themselves in this situation because they put themselves in it. They found themselves in the situation because they lost jobs, because of the crash, incomes went down and they could not afford to pay.

I will always remember Deputy Joan Burton saying before the 2011 election that if she got into the Dáil she would write down all the mortgage arrears like they did in Iceland. It worked in Iceland. They cut all the mortgages down to about 70% or whatever so that people could actually manage to pay them in a changed situation. That should have been done here. We gave the banks money for the loss they made on their mortgages and that. The banks have gained an awful lot out of this. The Government has supported the banks. The last people who have been dealt a decent set of cards are those who found themselves in the situation through no fault of their own.

The ECB has instructed the banks to get rid of their distressed loans. It could be that we will see many of these people facing eviction or notice to quit. They will find themselves being handed a letter by a sheriff to say they no longer have a home and are to go to the local authority to put themselves on the housing list. As has been mentioned already, this means nothing to people. They are homeless. Earlier, during Leaders' Questions, I made a point about the research study, Investing in the Right to a Home: Housing, HAPs and Hubs, which shows that the housing crisis has not peaked. It will peak if these repossessions go ahead. We will have thousands of families coming into homelessness over the next five years if we do not deal with it.

I support the Bill in principle. It is trying to deal with an issue and get a resolution for people in this situation. However, I do not think it will work. We have to look at the broader issue. We know that at the moment, there are negotiations going on in respect of Irish mortgage holders with distressed loans from AIB. They are talking about potentially getting 2,000 properties where the owner qualifies for mortgage to rent and a further 3,000 distressed mortgages that they could actually buy at the rate at which they wanted to sell them to vulture funds. People would be able to pay back their mortgage according to their means.

Something like this has to be brought into account. A similar Bill, the National Housing Co-operative Bill 2017, has gone through Second Stage in the Seanad. I think it is supported by the Master of the High Court, Mr. Honohan. Something of that nature, which takes in the broader sense of distress, needs to be considered. We have proposed various types of resolutions in the Dáil, but the Government just does not listen.

If our economy is to move on, people have to be able to pay back what they can afford. People in 2017 cannot afford to repay mortgages of 2008 levels. The Minister should work with bodies like the Money and Advice Budgeting Service, the Free Legal Advice Centres, the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation and the housing bodies to put these structures in place quickly. We have 12 to 15 months before we will see the banks and the vulture funds moving in heavily on people. Not too many cases have been before the courts to date, but I think we will see many more over the coming period if a general resolution of this issue is not found. I appeal to the Government to move on this issue. I know the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government is in talks with Dublin City Council. The necessary structures need to be set up and need to get moving so that people can go to a one-stop-shop to resolve and deal with their issues with the banks.

I would like to know why the housing bodies did not take 3,600 mortgages in respect of which agreement had been reached with the banks for them to go into mortgage-to-rent scheme. Why are housing bodies refusing to take on mortgage-to-rent cases that have already been cleared through resolution? I think that should be investigated. It is an absolute disgrace that someone who has gone through the difficult process of getting some sort of mortgage-to-rent deal then finds that the housing bodies are not taking their mortgages on board. I will leave it at that. I ask the Minister to move on the issues I have raised, including the issue of the AIB mortgage holders, and look seriously at the Bill I have mentioned.

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