Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Our constituents, rightly, have been enraged by the proposed sale by Permanent TSB of 18,000 distressed mortgages to unregulated vulture funds. The loans, of course, include 14,000 family homes and are said to be valued at €3.7 billion. The so-called Project Glas reminds us that nearly 49,000 mortgages are now held by non-bank lenders and that more than half of receiverships are now initiated by vulture funds. Like other Deputies, I have experienced making contact with the credit intermediaries of the funds on behalf of families in acute distress at the prospect of losing their homes. We recently read about the experience of Mr. Charlie Weston of the Irish Independent.

Going on the track record of vulture funds and their agents, the sale of home mortgage backed securities should simply be banned by legislation. While the takeover of a whole bank or building society by another similar entity is a long-standing feature of capitalist economies, most of our constituents believe - I agree with them - that the bundling and sale of home loans in speculative instruments is an outrage which should be ended. We saw it flourishing when Mr. McCreevy and Mr. Ahern were running the State and running it over a cliff.

However, banning mortgage backed securities is not the subject of this fairly feeble Bill introduced by Deputy Michael McGrath on behalf of Fianna Fáil and, apparently, now supported by their partners in government, Fine Gael. It is laughable and ironic that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the parties which left us at the mercy of vulture funds in 2007-2008 are now sponsoring and supporting this legislation. Throughout the barren austerity years from 2008, I watched Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies, including Deputy Michael McGrath, troop together into the Yes lobby to wreck our national finances, our banks and our households. Deputy Michael Noonan, in particular, bears a shocking responsibility for the situation of the sale of much of our country and for the position now faced by 14,000 Permanent TSB home mortgage holders. It was Deputy Noonan and the then Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, under the leadership of Deputies Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore, which greatly accelerated the sale of Irish property assets to vultures after the Davos World Economic Forum in 2014. NAMA was ordered to rapidly dispose of its remaining €22 billion loan book and we became familiar with notorious financial vultures such as CarVal, Cerberus, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Apollo and Lone Star. The human cost to families and individuals with split or distressed mortgages already sold or threatened with sale to vulture funds can never be underestimated. Most frustrating of all is that householders tried to engage with one of the pillar banks but the bank refused to engage with them. I fear that this legislation will do little to protect those families and to keep them in their homes.

The Minister for Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank have key responsibility for the welfare of those citizens. I note that the courts have thus far generally played a positive role in keeping people in their homes. The redefinition by the Central Bank and the ECB of performing loans to include split mortgages would be a huge step forward and give Permanent TSB an alternative route to viability. I note the letter published tonight on Twitter by Deputy Michael McGrath. A huge extension of the mortgage to rent scheme would also be very positive and we have all been heartened by David Hall's iCare Housing programme and his arrangement with Allied Irish Banks, AIB. Given the public rescue of the pillar banks, we should require them to work closely to improve their liquidity ratios. Most of all, we must ensure that Permanent TSB, AIB, Ulster Bank and others do not put their home mortgage holders at the mercy of rapacious foreign vulture funds.

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