Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

One of the most regressive developments in economics from the late 1970s and early 1980s, in the Thatcher-Reagan era, was the process of securitisation and the bundling and selling of loans. The most despicable aspect of that development was the bundling and selling of mortgages and home loans. It has profoundly impacted on hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens, especially in the years of this Government since 2011.

I am delighted to have a brief opportunity to strongly support the No Consent, No Sale Bill 2019 tabled by Deputy Pearse Doherty and Sinn Féin. Last Wednesday, I attended Deputy Pearse Doherty's informative briefing on the Bill and heard outstanding contributions on the mortgage and securitisation crisis from David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association and Carly Bailey, whose family lost their home in this despicable process.

We passed the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) (Amendment) Act in 2018, which became operational in the past week. I spoke strongly in support of that Bill and I welcome the small step towards regulating vulture funds. Sinn Féin’s Bill will profoundly strengthen the regulation by requiring the consent of the mortgage-holder before a mortgage can be sold. It is a welcome addition to a process of finally beginning to regulate vulture funds. It is a pity that coalition partners, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, are not supporting this welcome Bill. A point Deputy Pearse Doherty made on a number of occasions and which my colleague, Deputy Pringle, has just made is that what we are doing here is simply putting on a statutory basis the Central Bank's mortgage rules and making them a statutory requirement. It is very disappointing to read today that the Central Bank is warning the Department of Finance not to support the Bill and saying it will somehow reduce banks' ability to sell non-performing loans. One of the scandals is that so many performing loans have been sold to vulture funds. A whole host of other spurious reasons were given in the Central Bank's opinion on why the Minister should not do this.

The Minister knows from his experience in Dublin Central, as I know from Dublin Bay North, that the Bill is the right way to go and we should do it. It is sad that Fine Gael has had a particular affection over the years for vulture funds. I was in this Chamber when the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Michael Noonan, extolled the virtues of vulture funds. He talked about vultures in the ecosystem. They fulfil a useful function. He obviously meant they pick the carcass clean. In this case we are talking about the intense suffering of families who have lost their homes and suffered grave stress. They are the kind of constituents we meet week in and week out. We had the appalling situation a few weeks ago when the Taoiseach said that vulture funds are more effective than banks. The reality is that Fine Gael, over the past eight years, has done everything possible to protect the kind of asset-earning, profit-motivated actions of the pillar banks, all banks and the flotilla of vultures that follow in their wake.

I support the Bill proposed by Sinn Féin and Deputy Pearse Doherty.

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