Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think we will all support this Bill and I am delighted to join my colleague, Deputy MacSharry, in supporting it, as I was delighted to join him in writing legislation while in the Seanad. Government Members should cop themselves on and go down to a mortgage court any day of the week, wherever it is on, because they obviously have not been there. I have, as many of my colleagues have, as a Deputy, not a solicitor. I hope my experience in my profession has been helpful to the people I have met there. What is going on in our mortgage courts day in, day out, every week in every county, is a shame and a national embarrassment. Anyone can look up the list: there is not even any confidentiality regarding people's mortgage arrears problems.

Like Deputy MacSharry, I, together with a former Fine Gael Deputy, Olwyn Enright, in 2009 prepared a report for the social protection committee on this issue as it was arising. We tried to get implemented some of the recommendations we put forward then. Brian Lenihan, God be good to him, tried to implement some of that report and other ideas that came forward in other reports before that Government left office. Some of those ideas still have not been implemented at all. One is mortgage to rent. Mortgage to rent is the answer to a huge number of people's problems with mortgages. There is a huge number of people out there for whom mortgage to rent is the easy and acceptable solution. It would keep them in their homes as renters and save the State a fortune not spent rehousing them somewhere else. We must get serious about mortgage to rent. It does not exist in reality. It is the answer. The answer is in front of the Minister of State. When we researched this in the social protection committee in 2010, it had already been operational in Scotland, so it is not a novel idea. It has been called for in this country for years and Fine Gael has been completely deaf to it. I urge Fine Gael Members to go to the mortgage courts, see the stress and worry on people's faces because of this and do something about it. If the current Government cannot do something about it, another Government must take office to do it because Fianna Fáil has consistently provided solutions, possibilities and hope to those who wish to remain in their homes.

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