Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

It is incredible that we are debating this Bill now. Given that many families have already gone through a challenging and difficult time with the banks and courts over the past ten years, some might consider that the progress of this Bill and the Government has been slow. It is also incredible that there are still families winding through the courts and negotiating their indebtedness with the banks. They are the collateral damage of the previous crisis, yet we are discussing their situation at a time when we have already entered the next housing crisis. We have not even fixed the difficulties of the previous one, yet people are now dealing with spiking rents and house prices, 75 people died in homelessness on the streets of Dublin alone last year and 38 have died in homelessness so far this year. The Government feigns surprise that international investors and vulture funds are hoovering up housing units in competition with young families who are trying to purchase houses, but Fine Gael rolled out the red carpet for such funds just a number of years ago.

What has happened to this country? That is a big question that we have to ask ourselves. A generation or two ago, it was commonplace for a family living on a single income and potentially with more children than is the case nowadays to be able to buy a home. Today, most families are smaller and have two incomes but are struggling to pay rents or mortgages, if they can get one of the latter at all. Young people, many of whom have been maligned by Members of this House during the pandemic, are suffering the most in terms of being unable to afford rents and buy houses. They are suffering 25% unemployment in general. For certain cohorts of young people, the unemployment rate can be as high as 60%, which is incredible. There is no doubt in my mind that, when travel reopens, many of them will unfortunately do what young people in this country have done for generations, that being, leave for foreign shores for work purposes. That is incredible. We are discussing a society where this generation is worse off than the previous one. That is not progress, but regression in most people's lives. Any one of the issues of homeownership, mortgage repayments, rent, the commuter crisis, childcare costs, the cost of living, high levels of personal taxation, salary stagnation and economic instability is a significant challenge to a family on an average income and an insurmountable challenge for most families on low incomes.

Many of the banks have not done right by families in mortgage distress. I have dealt with hundreds of people, small businesses and farmers who were in mortgage distress or insolvency situations. The greatest issue they have been facing is that banks will not do business with them, will ignore them or will have their cases dealt with by ten different staff who are operating through call centres where no individual is identified to handle their needs.

This leads me back to what is happening in the banking market. The banking market is intrinsically linked to the housing crisis.

The Government created what was, in effect, a duopoly or two-pillar banking system, and that lack of competition has been further concentrated with the exiting from the market of Ulster Bank and KBC Bank. The more concentrated the system becomes, the less competition there is and the less ability customers have to influence those institutions to meet their needs.

I welcome the Bill and the changes it will bring. However, I cannot remember there being a Bill for a long time for which the phrase "too little, too late" was more apt.

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