Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague, Deputy Doherty, on bringing forward this motion. In recent months each and every one of my constituency offices, whether in Mullingar, Athlone or Longford, has seen a dramatic increase in people coming in with the dreaded letters from their mortgage providers announcing another increase or drain on their family's resources that they simply do not have the capacity to meet. Many of these people are those who got into difficulty after the last financial crash when the most they had experienced of the Celtic tiger was reading about it in a newspaper as it affected somebody else. They saw their mortgages sold to vulture funds. The same vulture funds can now charge over 7% interest on a mortgage they bought for buttons. The options available to this cohort of people are extremely limited. They cannot move to a fixed rate or move providers. Those doors are firmly closed. So, too, was the option of relying on the Central Bank to take action as it effectively washed its hands of any responsibility. These are families who have met their repayments on time, but the continuing rises in interest rates are having such a disproportionate impact on them that their ability to keep doing so is genuinely in question at this point. They are going to fall into arrears without assistance. These are families who have seen their transport, lighting, heating and food costs increase. They need assistance and they need it at this time.

Regulatory officials may not have the power to intervene in the commercial decisions of setting interest rates, but Government does have that capacity and the power to do so. Today is the day to make that decision to do so and to make a commitment to those families and hard-pressed mortgage payers to show the Government hears the plight they are experiencing and that it is willing to go some way to relieving that additional cost they face every month. There have been multiple interest hikes over recent months and we know there are more of these sharp and significant rises in interest costs to come. Now is the right time to do this. I think the Minister and the Taoiseach understand that. The Taoiseach referred to a potential move in the upcoming budget, but in reality that is simply too far away. It needs to be done now and in a very targeted way. We need a temporary mortgage interest relief to see people over this. We must provide that relief on the portion above what the interest would have been in 2022 and limit it to the principal private home.

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