Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The ECB hiked interest rates four times in 2022. It has already hiked rates this year and it is still only February. In line with their policy of forward guidance, they have already indicated that they intend to raise rates by another 50 basis points in March. That means a crisis for many mortgage holders. The Minister will be aware, and I am sure that people tell him in his clinics, in his local shops and at the butchers, about the real pressure they face as a result of these rises. These are people who are now coming off fixed rates or who had been on tracker mortgages. They are seeing sharp increases in their payments and they simply do not have that additional money to spend. They do not know where they are going to get it. Obviously, these hikes will not be applied universally across the board. There will be different rates depending on whether the person is on a variable, tracker or fixed rate. It will also depend on who is their lender. However, we do know that many people are experiencing this impact at this very moment. For instance, we know that the average tracker has increased over the last nine months, from just over 1% to 4.1%. For someone whose mortgage may have been sold to a vulture fund, they could have rates of more than 7%. This is really impacting them in terms of thousands extra that will be required for their mortgage repayments.

That is why we are bringing forward this motion. It proposes a timely, targeted and time bound relief measure for all those people who are really struggling at this moment. We believe this can be done, and on an affordable basis. It will help those people who are struggling at present. It only applies to the principal primary residence.

As such, we are not talking about providing relief to landlords or people with second or third homes. This motion is focused on those who are struggling to afford to get by. Since it uses an interest reference rate applied to a mortgage loan in June 2022, the relief would be based on the difference in the interest payments between the reference rate and the higher interest rate in 2023. This means our butchers, shopkeepers and others in our communities who are struggling to pay their mortgages and other bills would get some kind of relief. We need to be clear that we are listening to them about the struggles they are facing.

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