Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this particular issue, and the Minister of State for coming into the House to address it. It relates to a meeting which the finance committee had with the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and his officials some time ago, wherein he shed some considerable light on the way lending agencies were expected to treat their customers. What is emerging now is a new and aggressive regime in respect of some impaired loans, some of which were in payment constantly and some of which were not, and some of which were affected by the health of the borrowers who were put out of business and unable to continue working. In some cases it is alleged that the borrowers never engaged. In these cases, the borrowers engaged all the time and repeatedly, and found it very difficult to engage. They found that they could be waiting for somebody to answer the phone for 20 minutes, half an hour or more, and maybe then the person was not there or there was a different person there.

What is happening now is that agencies have adopted a new and aggressive attitude, and they are pushing for repossession in a lot of the cases where there should have been a solution found to meet the needs of the borrower and the lender. That has not been done. I have to say that bringing it to the floor of the House is deliberate in order to alert the Minister of State to what is going on behind the scenes. We had the issue where there was a proposal to abolish ATMs throughout the country by one lending institution, and it was changed. What is actually happening is that is being done by stealth. Anybody who goes to cash machines anywhere now will find that every second one is out of order. It is the same attitude by stealth.

It is not acceptable. The same attitude can be seen in the number of times that borrowers are being contacted and the manner in which they are being contacted. The effect of the repeated emails and letters is to make every effort to intimidate the borrower into submission. There is a move towards repossession and into receivership in many cases. In a number of cases, really considered proposals were put forward but were either ignored or were put on the back burner and not mentioned at all. In both Pepper and Start Mortgages, these issues are being pushed in a way that has not been seen before. It is timely to bring to the attention of the House their activities and to impress upon all the lending agencies that the people of this country bailed them out in many cases, at great loss and hardship to themselves. A small bit of consideration for the people who bailed out the banking system could now be considered to be timely. Now is the time to do it because it is essential that we stand up for the people who stood up for this country and continue to work hard to stand up for it.

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