Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The whole point of the commitment given was that the code of conduct had to be changed because of the new environment where vulture funds owned loan books including family home loans. It was the bare minimum change required and it has been spectacularly dropped by the Government.

This week in a reply to a parliamentary question to me the Minister confirmed that no firm has been sanctioned to date for a breach of the CCMA. There have been tens of thousands of mortgage cases over recent years and not one firm has been sanctioned. Perhaps the Minister believes that is evidence that the code works. My take on it is that it is evidence that the code is not robust enough and is not fit for purpose.

It is two and a half years since the former Minister, Deputy Noonan, stood exactly where the Minister stands today and told me: "I am willing to review it again to make it mandatory on lenders to provide the more effective of the range of options that are now in the system to their borrowers." He went on to say: "I can confirm that in conversations around the time of the negotiation of the programme for Government there was an agreement that we would continue to have the code of conduct on a statutory basis and that it would be extended to cover certain options that borrowers are not statutorily bound to offer." That is a Fine Gael promise to make it compulsory for vultures to offer split mortgages and mortgage-to-rent that has been abandoned. That is wrong because people are very concerned that the suite of options available is not being implemented. We still see today the thousands of people in mortgage arrears. In my home county there are 1,200 people in arrears for a quite a long time, yet these vultures do not offer split mortgages or mortgage to rent. That was promised and has been abandoned. Will the Minister explain why he is letting vultures off the hook in this regard?

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