Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the Deputy raised a sensitive matter in a very appropriate and reasonable manner. I recognise that he has put on the record his condemnation of violence from any source, as I do.

It is important to acknowledge that mortgage arrears are going down in Ireland. Five or six years ago there were hundreds of thousands of people out of work and unable to pay their mortgages, leaving those mortgages in arrears. As the economy has recovered and more people are back at work, and as incomes are rising again, mortgage arrears are decreasing. A corps of people nonetheless may never be able to repay what they owe, and those people need our help. We have put in place systems to help them, specifically the Abhaile scheme through which people can get legal and financial advice to help them restructure their debts. There are 116,000 mortgages in Ireland that have been restructured and 87% of those loans are performing or being repaid. There is help there and the 116,000 families in Ireland that have had their mortgages restructured are proof of that.

We can take the mortgage-to-rent scheme, where a party may give up a home but remain in it. A person who cannot pay a mortgage would surrender the property to the lender but he or she may stay in it and pay rent. There are now 424 families who have retained a home by being willing to give it up but to rent it thereafter. The 116,000 people who have had their mortgages restructured and the 424 families who have signed up for the mortgage-to-rent scheme are a much greater number than the number of eviction orders being executed.

The number of such orders being executed is actually going down. It was 400 last year and the previous year while it was 900 the year before that. Courts hear both sides of the story and rarely issue a repossession or execution order unless there is good cause and other avenues have been exhausted. I would say to people that if they genuinely cannot pay back their debts, they should seek the assistance that is available. Many people have done that and have been able to either settle their debts to their satisfaction and stay in their homes or have their loans restructured.

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