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

I warmly welcome the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. The figures contained in the report are astounding. There are 18,000 mortgages, valued at €3.9 billion, currently in the hands of unregulated vulture funds. Thousands of family homes, rental properties, businesses and family farms across the country are in the grip of these funds. The business model of the vulture funds is very simple. They seek to profit from asset-stripping. They buy in bulk at knock-down prices and maximise the return they can get. They buy cheap, grind out a profit and leave. I have heard of cases in my own county where the funds have bought at a rate of 25 cent to the euro and then pursued the individual family for up to 80 cent or 90 cent to the euro. It is totally wrong that such a system should be in place. It is not a system, unfortunately, that has emerged by accident; it was designed and created by the Government.

I will give an example of one family in my county. The McCann brothers bought 38 acres of land in Meath a decade ago. Unfortunately, like many others they bought at the top of the market and got into financial difficulties subsequently. They offered around 20 acres as a security to Ulster Bank, and the loan was then sold to a vulture fund. The vulture fund sought to sell the 38 acres, including the 20 acres given as security, at auction. The family had no prior knowledge that the land was going to auction. In fact, the credit servicing firm was negotiating with them at the time it was put up for auction. It was described as vacant land when it was put up for auction; it clearly was not. Once the land was sold the vulture fund sought to pursue the family for any outstanding debt. To try to fix the problem the McCann's sold the family farm and paid out approximately €80,000 from that. The home of another brother was remortgaged, and approximately €150,000 from that went towards paying the mortgage. In addition, a site on the land was sold and the proceeds handed over to the bank to bring down the amount owed. The family has approached the credit servicing firms with a repayment package on top of all this, but today its debt level is almost exactly what it was on the first day. After all those changes it owes roughly the same money it borrowed. The Irish Farmers Association has been helping, and the family has put forward further proposals that would see part of the land sold by way of a voluntary sale rather than forced sale.

It is incredible to think that if the vulture fund accepted the new deal and let the McCann family stay farming it would still be getting double the amount of money it paid Ulster Bank for the loan. The level of asset stripping is mind-blowing. The vulture fund would double the money it paid for the loan yet it is still not satisfied with it.

I remember standing in front of the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, around four years ago. We were horrified at Fine Gael's plans regarding these vulture funds. I told the Deputy that it did not make any sense to sell these properties at knock-down prices to vulture funds. I suggested that the families, businesses or farmers who owned these properties should be given the chance to buy the properties at roughly the same price, given that they had invested their lives in them. I suggested that if the businesses and farmers were given the chance to buy it would ensure that jobs would not be lost, and that if families had the chance to buy people would not be added to the homeless register. Deputy Noonan rejected that logic. I felt that he was telling them to get stuffed.

At the heart of this are families, just like ours. These families are caught up in an all-consuming catastrophe. They are being mentally and physically tortured. While the family I spoke about is doing its best to fight through the problem, we know of families around the country which have not been able to fight through it and who are no longer with us. They are the victims of the policies the Government has followed.

When we get answers to questions on this issue it is often the case that Fine Gael Deputies wring their hands and offer, in soothing tones, their efforts to ameliorate the damage that is being done by the vulture funds. However, the stark truth of the matter is that the vulture funds are an economic tool the Government has employed within the economy.

The Government has invited these funds into both the market and the economy. It has invited them into family homes and farms throughout the country. It is a tool the Government is seeking to use. Deputy Noonan said that vultures carry out a very good service in ecology. It is startling. Fine Gael's policies are often brutal and cruel. While they have better marketing and branding than the Tories in Britain, there is very little difference in the damage that they do.

Sometimes Deputies finish up late, go home and forget about what has happened during the day. However, it is really important to realise that our decisions and votes as Deputies lead to effects on other human beings. We are directly and personally responsible for what happens to those other human beings as a result of the decisions we make here. For too long people have tried to isolate and insulate themselves from the damage that has been done. Fine Gael Deputies are directly responsible for these families due to the tools they are using.

It is astounding. Some of the people trying to unwind their problems with vulture funds find the vulture funds will not talk to them. I tell them that the vulture funds will not talk to us. It is incredible that the vulture funds are giving two fingers to the Oireachtas and the elected representatives in Leinster House by refusing to come before the committee. They know that they are untouchable because Fine Gael has made them so. As a result, they simply ignore the invitations issued by joint committee.

The vulture funds are not shy, however. They are well able to talk, and when they get an opportunity to talk to decision-makers directly, out of the public glare, that is what they do. The report shows that vulture funds met with the Department of Finance 125 times in the past few years. They are giving the elected members two fingers but they have open access to the Department of Finance. It is incredible that this is happening. I understand that the Minister of State routinely meets companies that would be considered vulture funds though their interests may not be in residential property. I commend the joint committee and its Chairman on publishing this report. The information in it is striking.

The committee recommends that the Government introduces legislation to provide for the regulation of entities that are currently unregulated, the loan owners operating in the Irish market. Three years and four months ago, I sat on the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and I made exactly the same proposal in a piece of legislation. Only two members of that committee voted for that proposal, Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett and myself. Unfortunately Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party voted against it. I know that there are exceptions within Fianna Fáil with regard to this particular issue. It is really important that we intervene here. Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can step in and intervene. It is also important to mention that while it will help, regulation is not a silver bullet. Far from it. To stop the vultures we have to stop feeding them. The Minister is in a position to stop feeding them through his influence over the banks and the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA. It is important to draw a line and say that no more of this will happen in the future. Again, I ask the Minister to do that; to actually use his influence for the people the Government represents rather than for business interests.

In so many aspects of Irish society, whether it is housing, banking, health, the issues surrounding Moore Street or even education, Fine Gael's natural instinct is to defer to the private sector all the time. The private sector has an important role to play in this country. We need to have commercial activity in this country for the country to function. However, we do not have to defer to it on all occasions. The market is not always the solution to these issues, especially the distorted market that the Government has created.

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