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

We welcome many of the provisions in this Bill, and it goes some way to dealing with the difficulties people have. As Deputy Doherty has outlined, there are many people who are in serious difficulty and who are finding it hard to manage because their loans have been sold to vulture funds, which do not fall under this and do not have access to any recourse when they have a complaint or difficulty. Some of these funds are extremely rude and obnoxious in the way they deal with people. They ring up, make demands, put pressure on and then more pressure on. People feel under huge strain. I deal with this in my own constituency, and I am sure the Minister deals with them in his constituency too. We know them all over the country. Yet we find we can do little when it comes to trying to resolve these issues. That is where the firm hand of Government has to come in to provide some recourse for its citizens so they can get fair play.

Going back ten years or more, we had the crash in the economy and many people were left in huge distress when they found the properties they bought were in serious negative equity. They found they had large loans they were unable to meet. Banks and financial institutions put huge pressure on individuals and small businesses and left them in a situation where they practically bankrupted them and destroyed their lives. As the Minister knows, many people were in serious distress to the stage their mental heath suffered seriously as a consequence. I believe we now have an obligation, in what to some extent are better times, to put provisions in place to ensure those kinds of scenarios never play out again. That is why it is so important to get these particular pieces of legislation correct. The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman can be, if done properly, a key player in that. That is why I think the recommendations brought forward by the Minister in this legislation go some way to deal with this.

However, it does not go all the way because it leaves that huge gap where so many people have loans sold to vulture funds and agencies, many of which are not within the State. You only deal with an agent for an agent for the holder of the loan. It leaves a terrible situation for many people. While we welcome this legislation and want to move forward with it, we hope the Minister sees the good sense in adopting some of the amendments that will come forward to try to deal with this so we can give this body the teeth it requires to stand up for ordinary citizens, small businesses and people who have had huge difficulties in the past and to ensure that can never happen again.

Many of the provisions are laudable. We want to see mediation and people having the opportunity to discuss what solutions can be found and brought forward to resolve these situations amicably rather than going to court and so on and people seeing their property repossessed. We need to see that happen. There is a situation in my constituency where an individual had a good business. However, with the encouragement of the financial institution, it was suggested to him when he had money in the bank that he should invest it in something. The institution would give him the extra and he was advised to buy property with it, because it was doing well and he would have an opportunity. He did that, and when the bubble burst and everything went wrong, the same institution repossessed his business, left people unemployed and destroyed his and his family's life. We want to ensure that type of situation can never happen again. That is why this particular legislation and other similar provisions are urgently required to deal with this.

See this speech in context