Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, is not here. It is not that I expect him to be here to answer me but it would be preferable, given the importance of the issue. We need to resolve this matter. Many families were given a break on loans and mortgages. The Government figures are around 89,000. There is a now a roadmap for the pandemic which will be at least six months. We are all meant to be in it together yet the banks have refused to continue mortgage and loan breaks. The Government does not have a great deal of credibility when it comes to its relationship with the financial sector, especially this week. What will the Government do about this? It is not a regular player, it is a major shareholder in the banks. We need solutions for people because families are crying out for them.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We bailed out the banks to an enormous extent. They have not repaid society for that bailout in any substantial way. In fact, they have persecuted many mortgage holders who were in arrears and dispossessed many from their homes. We cannot have a repeat of that. The mortgage break ending opens up the prospect of that happening again. I heard Government spokespeople on the radio earlier saying that the banks would deal with people individually and take their personal circumstances into account. We have heard that nonsense before. What actually happens is that people suffer extreme anxiety and hardship and are pursued. That cannot happen in a context where the people are in financial difficulty because they have complied with public health measures directed by the Government. The Government must step in and provide that protection and ensure that those breaks for those who cannot manage to meet their mortgage and loan repayments are not persecuted and further punished.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, but I am disgusted that the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, is not here. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State. We bailed out the banks and my children and grandchildren and everyone else's will still be paying them back, yet they have given two fingers to more than 80,000 people and families who had got a break, first for three months and then six. Let us just take one industry - music and entertainment - that provided so much solace and does so much for our mental health and well-being. The Taoiseach and others tell us we are all in this together but they and other small business people have been thrown overboard. They expected some bit of solace from the banks.

There is no legislation to deal with the banks and the Government has refused to introduce any, although many other EU states have brought in legislation to make the banks do so. We need legislation to force the banks on this. The Minister did not meet them until last Monday, three days before the freeze was due to run out. It was only a token meeting. The Minister has not dealt and is not dealing with the banks, and the banks have no interest in dealing with people sensitively one by one. They brought people through the courts throughout the pandemic. There were cases in the High Court taken by vulture funds and so on. The Government enabled the vulture funds by law to use hearsay. It is time the Government introduced legislation to put manners on the banks.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I apologise on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, who, unfortunately, cannot be here today.

Covid-19 has had a significant impact on many households and businesses, and the banks and other regulated lenders moved quickly to provide support to their impacted mortgage and other borrowers by putting in place payment breaks across the industry. The latest figures from the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, BPFI, indicates that around 89,000 payment breaks were granted to mortgage customers, and breaks were also put in place for 32,000 SMEs and 4,000 corporate borrowers.

It is to be welcomed that some of the borrowers who had a payment break have now been able to resume loan repayments. Central Bank and BPFI data indicate that over 90% of borrowers that have finished a payment break have returned to full repayments on the existing terms. However, it is important that lenders continue to liaise and work with borrowers who are in a position to resume loan repayments and that flexible repayment arrangements are provided as necessary. In that regard, the BPFI has indicated that the broad repayment options for borrowers who can recommence loan repayments following a Covid-19 payment break are either to return to repayments over the existing term of the mortgage or loan or to extend the term of the loan to allow the borrower to spread the repayments over a longer period of time. These flexible repayment arrangements are important as they will facilitate and help many borrowers meet their loan commitments at the end of a Covid-19 payment break, but lenders should also fully explain the nature of the new repayment and outline the implications, in terms of cost and any other relevant factors.

The Minister for Finance is very conscious that many other borrowers continue to be impacted by the economic consequences of Covid-19 and are not yet in a position to meet their loan commitments. He is fully aware of the stress and uncertainty that these borrowers are still facing, and they will continue to need assistance and support from their lenders and from Government. For its part, the Government, is continuing to provide significant income support to people who cannot get back to work, while grants, credit facilities and other supports are also available to businesses which continue to be affected by the restrictions which are still necessary to control the pandemic. Banks and lenders also need to continue to support and work with their customers and borrowers who are still impacted by Covid-19.

As the House will be aware, the Tánaiste and the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance met the CEOs of the retail banks and Banking & Payments Federation Ireland yesterday, where that point was clearly and strongly made to them. In fairness, it was accepted by the lenders, as Deputy Mattie McGrath has acknowledged. At the meeting, the banks outlined their plans for their customers who will be coming off payment breaks and they indicated that this engagement was a priority for them. They also indicated that they would have approximately 2,500 staff actively working on this matter, they would seek to work with and understand the individual situation of every borrower, and they wished to put in place individual solutions for borrowers if and when required. They stressed that their focus was on engagement, assessment and solutions for those who are still impacted by the pandemic.

The recent change in the European Banking Authority, EBA, guidelines for Covid-19 payment breaks, which the Minister for Finance wishes to emphasise refers only to the closing date for an application for a Covid-19 payment break, does not restrict or hinder lenders from agreeing appropriate further support arrangements for borrowers on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, the EBA has made it clear that such continued Covid-19 supports can include further breaks on loan repayments. However, other options will be available to borrowers at the end of a Covid-19 payment break and may well be better overall for them. The best individual arrangement can only be found where there is a meaningful engagement by both the lender and the borrower. The Government is conscious that this applies to the lender in particular.

It is important that lenders live up to the commitments that they have made to the Government and, more importantly, their customers who are still experiencing genuine difficulty. In that regard, I welcome the statement by the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, who has said that the Central Bank, which is the statutory regulator of banks and other lenders and has prime responsibility for protecting the consumer of financial services, will intensify its engagement with lenders to ensure they are engaging effectively and meaningfully and providing the appropriate post-payment break to borrowers who need it.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I am not sure that we got an answer. The only answer that I can take from the reply is that banks will be offering one-to-one solutions. We will now be relying on the innate goodness of banks, which has not been evident in this State to date. I want to know what the Government is actually going to do. This issue will not end today - we will have to revisit it in many forms.

We were told during the period of austerity that certain institutions and banks were too big to fail. While I welcome the fact that fewer people are looking for breaks, approximately 39,000 people have applied for a second break according to the Government's figures. We need to ensure that as many people as possible are covered. Unlike the institutions, the people are far too big to fail.

What we are seeing is in keeping with what the Government is doing with the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. We must keep as many people safe during the pandemic as possible and give supports to people and businesses, but we are failing miserably.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We need to see what actions the Government is delivering. We have heard the annoying and disgraceful news relating to the close relationship between Fine Gael in particular and the financial sector.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Government's policy is to rely on the goodwill of the banks to be humane towards borrowers in financial difficulty. That is pathetic. To call it naive would be a gross understatement. Remember what these banks did to borrowers who got in trouble as a result of the financial crash. They harassed and harangued them and put them through the wringer. People tried to engage with the banks. Banks would appear before the finance committee and say that they were being reasonable and were open to engagement, but in reality they were hounding, harassing and dispossessing people where they could. These are the same banks that are part-owners of the Debenhams consortium, dumped 1,000 Debenhams workers on the scrapheap and are allowing them to be treated in the most contemptible way. The Government's policy is just to let them at it. That is not a fair or acceptable policy to protect music workers, event workers, taxi drivers and people involved in tourism, transport-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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-----and all sorts of other sectors who have lost income and employment because of Government measures. The Government needs to do more for them.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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That reply was not the Minister of State's. It was useless, toothless and fruitless. There has been inertia in this and the previous Governments when it comes to dealing with the banks. We have no legislation, yet other European countries have introduced legislation to compel banks to deal with people during Covid.

The reply is cold comfort to people in the music industry, taxi drivers, small businesses and everyone else. We are all in this big boat together, but the Government has cut adrift the 50,000 small business people who have mortgaged their homes, bands and equipment. It will all be taken from them now. It has already started. They are out on an inflatable dinghy that is losing air fast, but the Government does not care about them. They need our support and help.

I cannot understand it. The Government is like a rabbit in the headlights and afraid of the banks. The banks have treated people dastardly for decades. There has been skullduggery and blackguarding. People have ended their lives through suicide, families have been destroyed and mental health issues have arisen because of the situation the banks created during the previous scandal. The current crisis is outside our control, but the banks are carrying on their merry way and the Government is intimidated by them. We need the Central Bank to deal with them, not sweet-talk them.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The first thing that the Government wanted to do for everyone who had any interaction with a financial institution was to protect his or her income, albeit not in the same way as happened in Northern Ireland, which Deputy Ó Murchú might be more familiar with than most of the Deputies present. Our Government has protected in excess of 1.3 million people through the PUP and what is now the emergency wage subsidy scheme.

Deputy Boyd Barrett might claim that Government policy is to sit back and do nothing, but the Government has in recent months done everything in its power, and gone beyond what most EU countries have done, to protect people's incomes in the first instance and then their jobs. In protecting their jobs, we are protecting their ability to make all of the payments within their scope, in particular their day-to-day living expenses. Perhaps the other jurisdiction on this island could learn a great deal from what has happened on this side of the Border. If Deputy Ó Murchú has any correspondence with the North, he might pass on what the Government in the South has done.

Deputy Mattie McGrath is right about the stresses that people are under. That is why the Tánaiste and the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform have engaged not only in the past week, but on a continuous basis through their departmental officials, with the CEO of every bank.

Deputy Boyd Barrett might choose not to recognise it, but we need a functioning banking sector in order to have a functioning business sector. He might want to nationalise them all and turn them into some sort of Cuban bank, but that does not work anywhere in the world in real terms except in North Korea and Cuba.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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A big credit union.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The people of Dún Laoghaire would not realistically want Kim Jong-Boyd Barrett's policies to be advocated.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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They might.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Why not one big credit union?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Government is committed to working with borrowers, lenders and everyone else because the country is in a financially precarious position, as are other European countries-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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-----but making flippant, throwaway comments in the hope of getting a few lines in the newspaper-----

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is what the Minister of State is doing now.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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-----does nothing for those who want to keep their jobs.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister of State has got his headline now.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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We have three more Topical Issues, so I ask for Members' co-operation.