Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and commend Deputy Michael McGrath. Vulture funds are a nightmare for many people. Those of us who have been representing people in mortgage difficulties have been going to middle men, with the issue then having to go on to the people who bought out the loans. In the past week, a report that the Government had mentioned claimed that the loans' owners had ticked all the boxes. They had. Asset Services, formerly with Capita, would ring or send the mortgage holder a letter and that person would then go back and forth and make proposals. At the end of the day, though, and while all of the boxes were ticked, the people who bought out the loans still called the shots.

Deputy Michael McGrath might clarify something that he mentioned. He stated that people would have direct contact with the person who owned the loan. Does that mean that the likes of Promontory will have to meet face to face the person who owes the debt? There is only one problem with that. There is a medicine, I will call it, whereby people earning under a certain threshold are eligible for the mortgage-to-rent scheme, but people in middle Ireland who are struggling do not qualify for it even though they tick all of the other boxes. Where farmers and SMEs are concerned, their loans' owners are inclined to try to drive in the boot. Someone who earns over €25,000 and owns a house, even if it is a family home, does not qualify for the mortgage-to-rent scheme.

The Minister needs to be aware of some worrying issues that are coming down the line. Even where people are eligible for the mortgage-to-rent scheme, councils in some parts of the country have sent letters to the Housing Agency claiming that their houses are too rural. That is an indictment of those councils. Some cases have been sorted now.

I ask that the Department would send an instruction to local authorities to the effect that if people are eligible for the mortgage-to-rent scheme, they are eligible regardless of whether the property is up a boreen or in the middle of a town or city.

I welcome what Deputy Michael McGrath has done with this legislation and ask him to clarify the position on the issue I raised.

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