Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank those who contributed to the discussion. While the new deputy leader of Fianna Fáil was terribly polite in his response, the net interpretation of what he said is really that the Government is not going to do anything and will let the free market decide. Lola, who I mentioned earlier on, is paying €900 a month, or €10,000 or €11,000 a year, more than she was two years ago. She most certainly is not getting €10,000 or €11,000 more in her wage packet. In fact, the real value of her wage packet will probably have dropped because of the rest of the cost-of-living hikes. There is no help for her. The free market is going to decide and the Government can do nothing.

Lola's story is repeated for tens of thousands of working people while the fact of profiteering by the vulture funds, which are creaming it, does not get a mention in the Minister of State's response. Something I did not mention but that we should mention is that those vulture funds bought those loans at approximately 50% of their original value. They still charge interest to the mortgage holder on the full value of the loan but they got that loan at 50% of the value and, in some cases, even less than that. It is win-win for the vulture and crushing impacts for working people like Lola and tens of thousands of others. The Government says there is nothing it can do.

There was something I found ironic in the Minister of State's speech. I do not know how many times I have heard this Government accuse the socialists of being ideological but I have never heard such an ideological response as the one we have just got. It is an ideological response that bears absolutely no relationship whatsoever to reality. The Minister of State simply asserts that we could not possibly do this because the free market and competition would be better. It is self-evident that competition is not better for the tens of thousands of people being feasted upon by the vulture funds and the profiteering banks that the Lolas of this world and every other working person in this country bailed out. We were able to interfere with the market to prop up the banks that had failed. There was no problem there. There was no problem with distorting the market to prop up the banks but the Lolas of this world have to take it in the neck. Tens of thousands are going into arrears and some end up not being able to sustain their mortgage repayments and lose their homes. Many more do absolutely anything they can to pay off their mortgages. That is what most people do. They will do anything but their quality of life is absolutely hammered while these vulture funds and the profiteering banks we bailed out are making profits. It is win-win for them. No matter what happens, they win.

What is also interesting is the claim that the market has to set interest rates and that we could not possibly have an administrative setting of interest rates. What does the Minister of State think the European Central Bank is if not an administrative setter of interest rates? That is not the free market; it is an institution set up by states that sets interest rates. It is done all of the time. While the European Central Bank is not exactly a democratic institution, it is an institution set up by the member states of the European Union that administratively sets interest rates so the idea that we cannot set interest rates to the benefit of and to protect mortgage holders, ordinary working people, is a nonsense. The truth is that the priorities of the European financial institutions and governments are to dance to the tune of the banks and big business interests. That is the reality but the Government says no and that the banks must be protected. It will intervene on their behalf but will not intervene on behalf of ordinary working people.

The Minister of State also failed to respond to the fact that some states do set reference interest rates and do not allow lenders to depart from those rates by more than a certain amount. This is done in a number of countries in western Europe, as we outlined, but there is no response to that fact. It can be done and is being done but the Government response is to simply trot out ideological formulas that bear no relationship whatsoever to reality.

I will again state the blatantly obvious. Any hope that competition will solve this problem has to deal with the reality that we have actually seen a reduction in competition without mortgage interest rate caps being imposed. Ulster Bank and KBC have left. The way they treated their customers was absolutely disgraceful but they left. Even when you do everything these banks want, they make their decisions purely on the basis of what is profitable for them. They do not give a damn. Even though there were hundreds of thousands of Ulster Bank customers in this country who had been with the bank all of their lives and sometimes for generations, it just upped and left without a care for the consequences and it flogged their mortgages off to vulture funds to pick their carcases. That is the reality. I do not know why it seems so crazy to suggest that, if we have shown ourselves willing to subsidise these profit-hungry banks, we might be able to do the same for ordinary people when they are struggling and that we could subsidise people. Perhaps we could even subsidise them by reaching into and reducing the profits of those financial institutions when they are making absolutely astronomical profits. While it is not what we are suggesting today, I believe we could actually have something even more radical, a banking system that runs on a not-for-profit basis. Is that such a crazy idea? We have institutions called the credit unions. It is possible.

It can be done. Lending, credit and financial institutions can be run on a not-for-profit and democratic basis. We do it with the credit union movement. However, we are not even asking for that.

The Minister of State has essentially no response on the vulture funds. Do they serve any useful function whatsoever other than to profiteer? The answer is "No". They have no useful function at all, but we do nothing about them. We let them crucify people. We take no action against them. Even if the Government will not do the 3% cap we are talking about, could we do something to stop the rampant profiteering? These institutions are charging interest rates well in excess even of those of the pillar bank lenders that are, let us remind ourselves, in the case of AIB and Permanent TSB still majority State-owned, that is, publicly owned.

It is a poor response from the Government. It is evidence that it is not just us saying it but that when push comes to shove, the Government goes with the interests of the banks, big business and corporate interests and ordinary people have to take it in the neck. That is not acceptable and it is why it seems we are not going to get justice for ordinary people, in this case mortgage holders, but also all the people affected by the housing crisis, the unaffordability of housing and the cost-of-living crisis unless we get rid of this Government and replace it with one that puts the needs of ordinary working people before the profits of greedy banks and vulture funds.

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