Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the work of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach on this issue. I have been very clear as to my expectations and what I want to see from the financial sector, and that is that customers who are making genuine efforts to repay their mortgages should not be allowed to fall into arrears by virtue of changes in interest rates brought about by monetary policy tightening by the ECB. We need to see the statutory protections and the code of conduct that is there being fully applied, which requires, as the Deputy will know, that all cases be handled sympathetically and positively by the lender, with the objective at all times of assisting the borrower to meet his or her mortgage obligations. There is a collective responsibility here shared not only by the Central Bank, the banks and all the non-bank lenders, including credit servicers, but also by the actual loan owners and the funders and the beneficial owners of those loans, who should be engaging with the committee. We will consider all of this in the lead-up to the budget and we will be putting more money back in people's pockets in the budget, but the precise way in which we decide to do that requires careful consideration.

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