Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said that we have time. At my request, we have invited Permanent TSB representatives to appear before the finance committee on Tuesday next. Deputy Michael McGrath made a similar request. Permanent TSB representatives have told us that they have entered into confidentiality clauses with prospective buyers. The train has left the station. These are vulture funds and the problem is that the perception is that by simply regulating them, everything will be okay. It will not be okay because the code of conduct on mortgage arrears, which contains a suite of options, is completely voluntary in nature. Vulture funds do not offer those options. They do not do split mortgages, interest-only payments or arrears capitalisation. A total of 84% of the more than 120,000 restructures that have been done so far have not involved these funds. I want to see the regulation of vulture funds. I want them, and not the middleman, to be punished if they break the law. Primarily, I want to ensure that the 14,000 mortgage holders and 4,000 renters will not be thrown to the wolves.

If we are honest in this debate, and the Government and Fianna Fáil know and we in Sinn Féin know, it is not simply a question of the regulation of the vulture funds. If long-term products are sold to companies that have a three or five-year interest, it will only end one way, in repossessions. People will be evicted and there will be more homelessness. We cannot stand here as legislators and pretend that there is some type of magic solution. There is a solution: the Government owns 75% of the bank. The Minister should lift the phone and tell Jeremy Masding that the Government refuses to stand idly by while he is about to throw his customers to the wolves, just because the bank did not get its act in order over the past three years and work down those mortgages in the way it should have done.

See this speech in context