Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It was my job as this issue was developing to work with the banks to ensure provisions were put in place to allow payment breaks to be given to mortgage and loan holders at a time when they needed them the most. When we were facing into this period, we were looking at a public health crisis and an economic emergency. As a result of the work done by the Department of Finance and me and the work done by the Central Bank and the other banks, in recognition of the huge challenges people were facing, we were able to put in place payment breaks to meet those challenges.

When we are debating the payment breaks, let us take into account that 160,000 of them have been made available to those who needed and deserved them. Let us recognise that there are 70,000 payment breaks currently in place for mortgage and loan holders who need and deserve support. Deputy Doherty referred to what was done in Belgium but he did not say that people with savings of more than €25,000 are excluded from the payment break provisions that are available in that country. He has not touched on the fact that in Germany, the length of the payment break is three months. There are differences between what is happening in Ireland and what is happening in other parts of Europe. When we look at what is happening in Belgium, we see that many mortgage holders are excluded from being able to access the payment breaks. When we look at what is happening in Spain, we see that there are very strict criteria in place - understandable from the point of view of the authorities there - which limit the breaks to a certain group of people on the basis of their income. What we have done in Ireland is to make mortgage breaks broadly available to those who need them the most.

Deputy Doherty asked about the role of the regulator and how these matters were interpreted by central banks in different European countries. During this period, I was engaging at European level and making the point that we must do all we can to minimise the risk of a further non-performing loan difficulty later in the year. We needed to avoid a situation where we would again see people not able to pay their mortgages through no fault of their own and facing the kinds of difficulties we faced in the recent past. When the Deputy compares what we are doing here with what happens in other countries, he might consider that the type of system we have in place is also different in terms of its breadth.

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