Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When the Minister's party clubbed with Fine Gael to prevent legislation to ensure these loans were not sold to the vulture funds, it gave commitments that people would be no worse off. How naive was that? How false a promise was that? These individuals are paying thousands and thousands of euro more as a result of their mortgages being sold to a vulture fund. I gave the example of Rachel. She is paying €4,000 in interest more than she was paying this time last year. That is a serious amount of money and it is before this month's interest-rate hike kicks in or that of next month. The Government handed them over to the vultures and the vultures are preying on them now. They are being charged 7.5% interest and it will go up next month to 8%. The Minister says it is over to the Central Bank. We know the limitations of the Central Bank. These vulture funds, in the main, are not offering fixed rates or reduced rates. Their offer to customers is one of "pay your mortgage or we come after you". There is a solution here. It is not to take away all of the pain but about reintroducing mortgage-interest relief in a targeted and tailored way.

That is not the way it introduced it in the past, which covered all interests, but to cover the increased interest since June of last year. Does the Minister not consider it appropriate that people paying over €5,000 more in interest should have a measure introduced to help them in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis?

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