Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk to the Taoiseach about mortgage prisoners. There are more than 30,000 households in this State that have not only had their mortgages snapped up by vulture funds but that have been told they cannot go on fixed-rate mortgages. Many of them are paying interest rates of 8% or 9%. That is on the Government because the State imposes maximum rates on moneylenders but not on the loan sharks that are the vulture funds. Yesterday, Tullamore Circuit Court disregarded appeals from a vulture, or its representatives, and approved a personal solvency assessment that imposed a fixed rate of 2.5% over 25 years. No doubt thousands of people will be contacting personal insolvency practitioners about escaping the prison and taking cases. Rather than forcing these people to go down this route, which takes time and expense, the Government should short-circuit the situation, intervene and force the vultures to offer fixed rates and, more important, to cap those charges.

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