Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. I apologise on behalf of Deputy Michael McGrath's who could not attend this debate, which has given me the opportunity to speak on the motion. As with Deputies McGuinness and Wallace, this has also been one of the main issues raised by my constituents since my election. The issue is how people are being treated. I also agree with Deputy McGuinness that the Dáil should have been recalled during the summer recess to discuss the sale of Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank loans. We know that 10,700 mortgages were sold to Start Mortgages, which is owned by Lone Star, while Ulster Bank has announced the sale of 5,200 mortgages to Cerberus, consisting of 2,300 family home mortgages and 2,900 buy-to-let loans.

It is also important to note that the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, in its report on engagement with vulture funds, called on Apollo, CarVal, Cerberus Capital, Lone Star Europe, Oaktree Capital and Starwood Capital to appear before it. The report recommended that the Government cease engagement with all unregulated loan owners or vulture funds until such time as these entities agree to meet with the joint committee for the purposes outlined in its report. It then recommends that the Government introduce legislation to provide for the regulation of entities that are currently unregulated loan owners operating in the Irish mortgage market.

Listening to previous contributions, a number of clichés sprung to mind, notably that we are elected by the people to protect the people and to be the voice of the people. That is what I consider to be my role this evening. I am experiencing what the joint committee tried to articulate in its report. It wants to achieve transparency and accountability and seeks reassurance about the role of vulture funds in the Irish market. How will we protect the owners of the 11,314 principal dwelling homes and 6,778 buy-to-let properties affected? We talk about houses and buy-to-lets but inside every one of those four walls are families or individuals. We are talking about people living in communities where their children attend school and where they work. Now there is uncertainty. Deputy Wallace spoke very well about the number of people facing repossession. That is what we are facing with the figures I am staring at. This is already happening.

It is disingenuous not to support the motion put forward by the Chairman of the joint committee, Deputy John McGuinness. It is incumbent on the Government to rethink its position. Amendments have been withdrawn because people have had second thoughts. I will certainly not support the Government amendment. It is important to remember what Deputy McGuinness said. I do not often refer to the confidence and supply arrangement. This may be the first time I have referred to it in the two and half years since the Fianna Fáil Party engaged in it.

There is a commitment in the confidence and supply arrangement to provide greater protection for mortgage holders, tenants and SMEs whose loans have been transferred to non-regulated entities, also known as vulture funds. I am the voice of the people of my area and want to protect them, like everyone else here.

On the large-scale loan sale by banks to unregulated loan owners, the joint committee undertook to invite these investment funds to appear before it to discuss the approach taken to mortgage arrears and distressed loans. It could not have been more simple; the clerk to the committee wrote a letter and invited the investment funds to appear before the committee in order that they could explain what was going on. It wanted to find out what the plan was, what strategy the funds had and what their motivation was, and how they were going to look after the families affected. The committee wrote to the funds most recently on 11 April, I believe, and each of the six funds I named earlier declined to appear before it. None came forward to give any form of reassurance or to provide transparency. It beggars belief that those funds were able to meet behind closed doors. What was discussed behind closed doors that cannot be discussed at committee? Many people and groups have appeared before the committee since I was elected, and I have seen heads roll out of committees. Why is there such secrecy involved in this instance? They are putting doubts into our heads as to what we are dealing with. Deputy Wallace put the matter very eloquently. He asked what there is to hide. I have doubts which have been copper-fastened by the fact that there is an amendment to this motion this evening. This should cease.

Fianna Fáil believes the banks should be working through their loan books on a case by case basis instead of outsourcing the dirty work to unregulated and unaccountable vulture funds. Through Deputy Michael McGrath we have introduced legislation that will regulate these loan owners, as the Central Bank had originally intended to do. The Government has accepted this legislation, and it is working its way through the Dáil, as the Minister of State D'Arcy said. That said, the refusal of these funds to appear before the joint committee is an affront to democratic accountability. It is even more obscene in circumstances where these funds had no problem with meeting the Department.

It is unfortunate that this motion is being taken on the graveyard shift. We have had some great debates on the graveyard shift, but it is a pity that this one, the content of which hits every county and community in the country, was listed at this time. There was a time when people believed that repossessions happened because people did not pay their loans. I am currently working on the case of a couple who, for the last five years, through all their distress, have negotiated and reduced their repayments to €315 per month. That might sound like a small amount; it is very large for this family. I met with them when this situation with Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank arose. They were very nervous, and so I went to their house. In fairness, I also got one of the fund managers to come with me to meet them. The loan these people had taken out had been sold on to Cerberus. They were reassured that paperwork would follow within a week and that they could get an extension for sixth months, allowing them to investigate other avenues, such as rent-to-buy. They rang my office last night to tell me that the paperwork has not arrived, but that they had received a call to say their loan repayments have increased to €1,200 per month. They will miss three of those payments, and by missing them it means they will renege on their deal. The black mark is out. The company managing the loan is not regulated - it can do what it wants. That is the fact of the matter.

We should support this motion, which proposes that until such time as these funds appear before the committee all engagement should cease.

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