Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis na Teachtaí Munster, Mitchell agus Stanley.

I got here just as one of the Ministers of State read out a prepared Government script in which he said, "The level of interference proposed by the Bill in the mortgage market is, we believe, both disproportionate and potentially unconstitutional." Let me tell the Minister of State that the level of interference by vulture funds in the banking market in people's homes day in and day out in this country is unconstitutional and disproportionate. The biggest scandal is that much of that is done while the Government has controlling shares in some of those banks.

Later the same Minister of State went on to say that if the Bill is passed, it would not be "a viable option for banks to allow them reduce their non-performing loans, a likely consequence would be an increase in the number of repossessions by banks". The Minister of State had the gall to say that if we pass the Bill, the State will repossess people's houses. That is literally what it is because the State still owns a number of those banks. The Minister of State is threatening that those banks would repossess people's houses.

One of those same banks, AIB, only yesterday announced that it is proposing to pay €100 million for Payzone, not €100 million to the people who are in mortgage distress or a reduction in their loans that it is giving to Cerberus at 40 cent or 50 cent in the euro to purchase bad loans from it. It has never offered that to its mortgage holders who are distressed. We have seen distressing scenes.

I have met people in my clinics, and I presume every Deputy has met such people, who are broken in health and broken in spirit. They no longer have the courage or fight left in them to face up to the bailiffs or to institutions such as Cerberus.

What has been said about the Bill is shameful. The Bill is logical in every single way.

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