Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are here again after over a year of continuous interest rate increases which people have had to try to bear. I say this in the context of the huge cost-of-living pressures across almost every sector. All the household needs for which people have to pay, such as the cost of putting fuel in their cars or insurance, have gone up and up. One of the areas on which the Government does and can have an impact is mortgage interest. There were mortgage interest relief schemes before; they can be brought back again. The schemes can be targeted and limited and can do exactly what they need to do in order to give the people who are finding it the most difficult some relief. However, the Government continues to play politics with it and refuses to do it. I often wonder if it is simply because the Opposition is asking for it. I noticed what I thought was going to be a road to Damascus conversion last week - I am not sure if it was in Tipperary or where it was - but seemingly the road to Damascus turn did not happen because the Government is not going to do anything after all. We want to see the Government stepping up and recognising that the people are really hurting and are in trouble. It is costing them hundreds of euro more per month to pay their mortgages.

A family with a 30-year mortgage that they got in 2009 came to me in my constituency. They are finding it difficult at this stage. They have children in college. They are at the period now when they need to get some relief. They cannot manage and they are asking why the Government is not doing something for them. These are the people we often talk about. They earn too much to get anything or to meet any of the criteria for any of the things that are being offered. Yet they are the ones who are working hard, paying their taxes and doing everything right. When it comes to it, the ECB introduces an interest increase for global reasons which are about the problems that are related to inflationary measures - energy and oil and all of that - and are driving all of this inflation. Who do these increases affect? Those very people. That is the problem here. The Minister needs to recognise that it is his constituents, the people who previously voted for Fianna Fáil throughout their lifetimes, who are coming to us asking why nothing is being done and why this Government is letting them down. He needs to recognise that and do something for them, not because we are telling him to do so but because it is the right thing to do for the people who are suffering hard. Too many people are saying to us that this Government has to go. This Government needs to be changed because it does not listen to common sense. That is exactly what it needs to start doing. It needs to recognise that there needs to be an ounce of common sense introduced into all of this. This is an opportunity to do that. The motion Sinn Féin is proposing seeks to get the Minister to introduce a package of mortgage interest relief in next month's budget for people who are the most pressed and need it. I ask him to step up to the mark and recognise his responsibilities, not to the Government or anybody else, but to the ordinary people out there who are suffering hard.

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