Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) (Amendment) Bill 2018. I thank my colleague, Deputy Michael McGrath, for all the work he has done in bringing this Bill to Second Stage today. This Bill aims to protect homeowners with mortgages, farmers and small businesses from vulture funds. It is necessary because the 2015 Act specifically did not do so. That Act, brought through the Oireachtas by Fine Gael at the time, specifically excluded from regulation the vulture fund owners of the loans. All the Minister has to do is check the Official Report during the passage of that legislation to see that I called for these funds, as the owners of the loans, to be regulated. I warned what would happen if Fine Gael carried through its approach of only regulating the middleman or the agent. That is what happened. The Government had the numbers to do that in 2015. This is why Fine Gael is here today. It does not control the Dáil and for once the Dáil will be able to get legislation through, and not the legislation that was bullied through by the Minister's predecessors. At that time the Fine Gael response was to merely look after the vulture funds. This does not protect the homeowners who have been making an honest effort to deal with their loans.

Currently AIB is considering selling off €4 billion worth of loans and Permanent TSB is considering selling off another €4 billion worth of loans. This is a total of €8 billion. The State owns 71% of AIB and 75% of Permanent TSB. Up to 20,000 home mortgages are involved in this situation, at an average of €200,000 for each family home. Vulture funds will not come into this sale unless they are guaranteed a minimum profit of 20% from the €8 billion. This is €1.6 billion. The funds want to take €1.6 billion of profits out of the banking network in Ireland. This will be a loss to the Irish taxpayers' investment in those banks.

Bank of Ireland, on the other hand, is not controlled by the State which only owns 14%. Bank of Ireland is not proposing to sell any of its loans to vulture funds, nor is it proposing to buy any of these loans that may come on the market. The only banks selling are the State banks controlled by the Minister that are too lazy to do the job they are employed to do; collect the money and deal with their borrowers. They would prefer to lose €1.6 billion of taxpayers' money and put homes and homeowners at risk. Houses owned by these banks have been vacant around the State for five, six and seven years and the banks are doing nothing about it.

This is a policy issue for the Minister and not for the board of directors or the chief executive of the banks. It is the Minister's decision and he has a duty to protect the taxpayers' investment in the banks, a duty to not let the banks flitter away €1.6 billion and a duty to protect the borrowers. The Minister cannot blame the EU, the ECB or the banks. The Minister controls them and the State owns them. The Minister is not a disinterested shareholder. The Minister should make the banks do their job and make them collect the money that they want to pass over to the vulture funds. It is a matter of public policy. A decision to sell these loans is the Minister's decision and the only person who can stop the sale is the Minister as he is the controlling shareholder.

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