Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today, the European Central Bank is going to raise its interest rate again by another half a percentage point. This means there has been a 3% increase since June 2022, and it will have an immediate impact on those with tracker mortgages. Approximately 200,000 households are in this position. There are also tens of thousands of borrowers with other mortgages who have had their mortgages sold off to vulture funds. Many of these are now facing interest rates of 7.5%, and this will increase again in March to about 8%. These people have no option to fix their mortgage rates and to go on to one of the different options the banks have because the vulture funds do not offer this. Despite these people having been reassured time and again that vulture funds provided the same protections and safeguards as the banks, this is not the case. These increases since June, then, are going to add thousands of euro to these people's annual repayments and they are already under pressure as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

I am, therefore, asking the Tánaiste to introduce a timely, temporary and targeted mortgage interest relief.

It can be done by introducing a relief that would absorb a portion of the interest costs that have incurred since June. It is sensible. Will the Tánaiste commit to reviewing and looking at an interest relief?

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