Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For months, we have been asking the Minister to do the right thing by homeowners. These are the same homeowners who Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael purport to support and hold in high regard. As each month goes by, people realise that these are just empty words and that lip service is being paid to these struggling mortgage holders, who cannot afford to continue with the crippling rates they are being charged, the ten interest rate rises they have had to experience and the significant income shock. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael saw off the selling of 78,000 mortgages to vulture funds. We know from the Central Bank that 22,000 of these were not even in arrears. They were never in financial difficulty and yet they were sold off without the consent of the homeowners. For the past number of years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have supported EU legislation to empower vulture funds and weaken the national government's ability to protect these same homeowners. Now those same homeowners who were thrown to the vulture funds are being torn apart by interest rates of up to 10%. We know from Central Bank statistics that the number of homeowners with vulture funds who are paying over 6% has increased drastically. The Minister has the same information. He knows how much they have increased by - about 19% - in the past couple of months.

The Government cannot stand by and do nothing. We have outlined to the Government what needs to be done regarding the retail banks taking back these mortgages. Again, we asked the same question today of the Central Bank. The Minister knows the criteria involved in taking back these mortgages but there seems to be obfuscation around all this and a do-nothing attitude that leaves these homeowners to the wolves. What we are asking for is sensible. It is temporary and targeted mortgage interest relief. Given that it is the same type of mortgage interest relief that Fianna Fáil supported before it was in government, this do-nothing approach cannot continue.

We know that the mortgages people are paying in this country are 52% higher than the average EU mortgage rate. I appeal to the Minister, the Government and Deputies in County Mayo to stand up for these homeowners who are trying to find hundreds more every month just to meet their mortgages. We have control over what can be done here. It has to be done. We cannot continue doing nothing.

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