Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

The Minister made the point that he voted against or obstructed the passage of my Bill because he thought it was not in the Government's interest. He is 100% right. He took the side of the banks and the vulture funds. It was not in their interest for that Bill to go through. I will tell the Minister whose interest the Bill was in. It was in the interest of the woman who spoke to me who is charged 6.5% by Mars Capital, or more than 6% by Pepper regarding her mortgage. It was in her interest, in the interest of people in Donegal and in the interest of people in the Minister's own constituency. He took the side of the vultures and the banks. I am raising the thousands of mortgage prisoners whom the Government abandoned and decided they were on their own. The Government pretended that everything would be the same, but it is not. They were not protected under the consumer protection code for a long time. It was only a number of months ago that this loophole was addressed. The problem here is that if they were with the main-street bank they would be saving thousands of euro in interest. That is the problem

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