Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would always encourage people to switch, whether they are in the hands of vulture funds or with the mainstream banks and lenders. They should always look at the option of switching if better value is available to them. I have serious reservations on the effectiveness of the measures that were announced. We know that 80,000 households have mortgage loans held by vulture funds and they have little option to switch. They have received letter after letter in the post confirming other interest rate hikes, adding hundreds if not thousands of euro to their mortgage repayments, and some of them are paying as much as 10% in interest rates.

The eligibility criteria are published by the BPFI and the banks are extremely restrictive. They require households to pay capital and interest, in full, on the outstanding mortgage, with no split or warehoused element on the mortgage. They expect your household's credit history to show a clean repayment track record, without arrears, for at least the past two years. In the Minister's analysis, how many of the 80,000 mortgage prisoners will be able to switch under these criteria?

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