Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This Bill is very basic. It simply seeks to put into law and make real what the Government and the Central Bank consider best practice. It is not a dreamt up idea but a real solution to halt the scourge of vulture funds and is the right thing to do. No bank should sell one's loan to a vulture fund that has no morals or respect for human life. The only thing these vulture funds respect is profit.

These banks have been bailed out by Irish taxpayers, the very banks that caused the economic crash in the first place. The Government has normalised many issues in recent years such as homelessness, the very poor health system, suicide and many more. Let us not put the vulture funds into this bracket too.

We must support this Bill. I ask all Members in the House to support it. It is about providing solutions for people and not for banks. What happens if they do not support the Bill? They will be sending families to the guillotine, the very same families that bailed out these banks, and now the banks want to hit them again. We have the perfect opportunity to do the right moral thing here tonight. If Members do not support this Bill, I have always said that where there is an action there is an instant reaction. People will die and have died. Marriages will and have collapsed. Families are left broken. Children are left without any hope for their future. Do we want to be responsible for that? Those of us on this side of the House certainly do not want to be responsible for it. I can see the heading now - Government and banks with blood on their hands. Is that what we want? It is not what those of us on this side of the House want. Is this what we want to be proud of? Do Members want to tell their children or grandchildren in years to come that they made a terrible mistake or that they did the right thing and sided with the people they were elected to serve and not the banks? Which story will they be telling? I ask them to, please, support this Bill tonight.

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