John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Members of the Minister of State's party are members of this committee. There was unanimous agreement on the content of the motion. It has been placed before the House in a proper manner. It calls for certainty within an unregulated market. The Minister of State has addressed these matters in an attempt to mislead the people who may be listening by telling us about what we should or should not do, the Department and getting involved with a red herring. We are not talking about investment funds that make positive investments in the country; we are talking about vulture funds that come in to buy what is on the market at the lowest possible rate while treating people abominably. The Minister of State wishes to dress down the committee, saying we should ask representatives of these vulture funds to come before us. At the same time, they are beating up those who took out these mortgages.

Deputy Anne Rabbitte illustrated the human face of this matter, relaying how are people, including families with young children, are involved in this process. People have lost their lives through suicide because of this. That is a fact. The IFA is now taking this seriously and is engaging on the matter. What more evidence does the Government need about vulture funds when we can see repossessions going on all over the country? People are appearing at repossessions with balaclavas and dogs. What kind of society is the Government allowing to be created by people who are not even from this country? They have come here for no other reason but to profit off the backs of the people with distressed mortgages. When those distressed individuals turn to the Government, its only response is the pathetic content of the Minister of State's speech. He tried to personalise the issue, singling me out over the committee. He also sought to lecture the committee on what it should do.

We have provided the report to this House based on witnesses testimony and fact. We have the letter from the Central Bank that indicates, if we read between the gobbledygook, that it does not want to regulate vulture funds. In a visit by a committee delegation to the ECB over the past few weeks, we found that its officials never told the Irish banks to reduce their exposure to bad loans from 26%, and in some cases to 5%. They never instructed the banks in Ireland to sell to the vulture funds. They asked the banks to work out the loans with the individuals concerned but the banks want to outsource the dirty, grubby work of repossessions and to drag families through the courts. All we have to do is look at how the banks presented the sales during the recess. There were thousands of them. As Deputy Broughan noted, people had agreements and arrangements with banks but the banks decided to go against the ECB. For example, if part of a loan had to be warehoused, it was classed as a non-performing loan and it had to go. Shame on the Minister of State and shame on the Minister for Finance for attempting to throw up a smokescreen in front of the members of this committee in this debate.

Let us look at what is happening. The vulture funds and the banks do not pay tax. The Minister of State has suggested we speak softly and nicely to the witnesses who might appear before the committee. However, he does not recognise the fact that those same witnesses are probably part of an entity that is beating up the citizens of the State and making their lives a misery by dragging them through the courts, as lay litigants in some cases. Children are watching parents trying to defend their family home. Is that what the Minister of State is happy with? If there were 125 meetings in the Department of Finance, how many recent meetings were held in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government on housing projects involving vulture funds? That question must be answered. The Government is going about its business in a State where it is watched. The general public knows damn well what is going on.

We bailed out the banks and, in one case, a bank sold almost 700 houses to a vulture fund called Cerberus. The State then purchased those 700 houses, not at the knock-down price or a price with a bit of added value for the fund over the original purchase price, but at market value. The Government then had the neck to include those figures in the Rebuilding Ireland acquisition figures. The vulture funds, the banks and all the entities other than the family have gained on the double or treble even just in that instance. Does the Government believe that is okay? The Minister of State suggested we write to agents of the vulture funds and ask them questions but we are fed up of writing on behalf of the Irish people to agents of vulture funds. We are fed up of the heavy-handed activity of the same funds. We are fed up of the language they use with their customers in attempting to gain the last pound of flesh from them. The people they condemn with a poor quality of life are appealing to us to intervene.

If the Government agrees with the confidence and supply arrangement and says it will bring forward legislation to protect SME business loans and the homes of individuals and families, why do we not see the results? Why, just before we into a third budget with this Government, did Deputy Michael McGrath have to bring forward such legislation?

That was the reply from Department of Finance officials at the committee. In case the Minister of State thinks we did not ask all of the questions, we did. There are approximately four levels of regulation for these firms and the Department tells us that if we were to regulate them, it would probably be at the lowest level of regulation. That is not what we want. We want to see proper upfront regulation. We want the vulture funds to appear by right before the committee. We do not want, as the Minister of State does, to engage with them to try to get them to respond to him or deal with him on a softly, softly basis. How dare he question the way in which witnesses are treated at the committee? I have seen witnesses being treated properly before committees of the House, some of whom had to be treated in the way they were because they had not been forthcoming with any information. The people have a right to expect us to deal with matters in the way we see fit to get to the truth and answers.

I again ask the Minister of State to acknowledge positively the work of the joint committee and what it is trying to do; that the stories we have been telling him or that he states are merely being told generally are, in fact, real; that lives have been lost; that people have lost their homes and are under threat. He should go to the courts to see how many are lined up and going through a process that is unfamiliar to them and desperate to try to save their homes. They have the support of Abhaile and the sum of €250, but then one looks at the banks which are represented by solicitors and barristers, both senior counsel and junior counsel. One point made by the Sinn Féin spokesperson is that one cannot get information from them. They will leave someone to hang and sweat it out. They will not proactively try to resolve issues. It is shame on the Government if the Minister of State does not engage proactively to bring about a situation where not only will they be accountable but where they will have respect for this House and the people.

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