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

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. A typical example of some of the things that are happening at present is that the lender will encourage the submission of a proposal to make payments or bring about a resolution and, invariably, that will have to be referred to a credit committee, which will reject it on the basis it is not realistic or sustainable. The lending institution, therefore, makes the decision to exclude the customer from the possibility of attempting to resolve the difficulty that has arisen.

As I said, there are some circumstances surrounding individual cases that are very testing, such as serious health conditions, which need to be taken into account and should be taken into account. There are also serious circumstances in respect of death, whether the death of a partner or whatever the case may be, and there are cases where families have split up, with one partner having gone in one direction. It is not at all unusual for the lending institution to settle with one partner, to the exclusion of the other, and then to come back at the end of the day and say the other partner is responsible for the whole lot.

That is fine and it sounds great, and it strikes terror into the hearts of borrowers, but I want to say this. It is very seldom that the borrower has not engaged. In fact, these borrowers engaged to the extent they were exhausted, and they came to the conclusion that every proposal they made was going to rejected in any event. Now the attitude has become more aggressive and abrupt, and there is a clear indication that there is an intention on the part of customer service agents and subsequent lenders to enforce the law, that is, to repossess the property, sell it from under the feet of the borrower in the shortest possible term and get a hold of the assets at a time when the value of the assets is much higher than it was some years previously.

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