Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From some of the contributions in this Chamber today, one could be forgiven for thinking that the State is a republic of the people for the banks by their friends in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. At every single juncture in the last 20 years when the interests of the people and the banks came into conflict, the establishment sided with the banks. First, Fianna Fáil facilitated light-touch regulation to allow the banks to make super-normal profits. Then it facilitated a property and credit boom that benefitted the banks at the cost of the owners. When the crash happened, it saved the banks at the expense of generations of Irish citizens, saddling them with tens of thousands of euro in debt. In the shadow of the crash, Fine Gael created a pillar banking system to reduce competition and to allow those banks to once again make super-normal profits. On this occasion however, those profits were to be made free of corporation tax.

The Government stood by while tens of billions of euro in bank loans were sold to the vulture funds, and tax breaks were designed to facilitate those funds. When the Government was forced to tighten those tax regimes, Fine Gael plastered that legislation with loopholes and exemptions. Of course, the Government also stood idly by in recent times while those banks were stealing money from people through the tracker scandal.

For me, one of the most sickening aspects of the policy that this Government has pursued - a policy I also raised with the previous Minister for Finance - is that it allows for banks to sell mortgages and business debt at cut-price levels to vulture funds, but refuses to allow those homeowners and those businesses to buy those loans at the same rate. That policy is grossly unfair, and it is putting people out of houses and out of jobs.

Today I spoke to a young woman who is one of thousands of victims of the policy of the Minister's Government. Like many women in mortgage distress, she falls under the really strange term that is now used, namely, "a deserted mortgage holder". Her partner has left her to deal with the cost of a mortgage. She has a young daughter, and she has been faithfully covering the mortgage of €1,500 a month since the crisis happened in her life. That has had a massive cost to her with regard to heating, food and every other priority a family should have. She is a nurse, and works all the hours she is given. In the Government's voluntary resolution scheme, the bailed-out bank refused any of the reasonable offers that the woman made. The only offer she has been given so far is that it would term-extend her loan. That means that the bank would make thousands of euro in extra interest and profit out of her distress. That bank is making billions of euro in profit at the moment and has been bailed out. The worry I have is that the regulation that is being offered here today will not protect her or families like her in the future.

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