Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Maybe he is too busy now fixing the delays in the Luas.

Fianna Fáil is rightly raising the issue of regulation, but legislation will only go so far. The laws were changed in 2015 to ensure that companies that manage loans are regulated, but regulation is not the main issue. That focus misses the point. Based on European Central Bank and Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM, rules, 28% of the PTSB loan book is now classified as non-performing. However, of the 20,000 loans thus classified, 6,500 are split mortgage loans. Those split mortgage loans under ECB-SSM rules are deemed to be non-performing, but splitting mortgages was one of the key responses to the arrears crisis. These are homeowners who have engaged with the bank, are paying what they can afford and are meeting their obligations. A portion of the loan was warehoused while repayments continue to pay down the capital on the rest. It is a betrayal of those homeowners the Taoiseach has referenced who engaged with the bank to the best of their ability to allow them now to be sold off to a vulture fund. Those mortgage holders who have engaged with the lenders should not have their mortgages sold off because of the quirks in the rules of the SSM.

As this issue is being examined by the ECB-Single Supervisory Mechanism and has been the subject of detailed work by them, and the Taoiseach says there are consultations pending, will the Government instruct the PTSB, as the main shareholder, to halt the sale at least of the split mortgages until the rules are changed? Will the Government impress on the ECB and the SSM the need to change the characterisation of non-performance to exclude people who are delivering on their commitment to the banks?

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