Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

Since last September we have been fixated on using taxpayers' money to help the banks. Anglo Irish Bank is enjoying €7.5 billion of taxpayers' money and one must ask, for what end? It is time we turned our attention to helping home owners who now face real challenges in meeting their mortgage payments. The banks have signed up to a moratorium not to foreclose for six to 12 months after the home owner gets into difficulty, but with rapidly rising unemployment - the ESRI predicts we will have 550,000 unemployed by the end of 2010 - reducing income as a result of levies, the fact, according to today's newspaper, that families are €43,000 less well off than two years ago, and huge personal levels of indebtedness, time is fast running out. This is likely to affect tens of thousands of home owners.

Recent research in the UK showed that the loss of the family home and unemployment are strongly associated with mental health issues. Our nation faces a huge, economic, socially stressful time. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Finance to the House before the summer recess to debate how the banks and Government can work together to find creative ways of helping home owners in difficulty during the recession. This is in everyone's interest. There are ways to deal with the issue, but they have not been considered in this country. The UK Government, for example, has put £1.2 billion into a home owner mortgage support scheme. Such initiatives could be a win-win solution because they give home owners the dignity they need to be able to hold onto their homes and the banks can avoid foreclosures and keep performing loans on their books, which is what they want.

The Minister has not intervened enough. He has been disappointing, even with regard to fixed-rate mortgages. He said his job was not to intervene but to regulate. However, he has not done that either. I am disappointed. It is time for the Minister to show respect for taxpayers' money and protect people's homes as well as the banks.

The issue of foreign adoptions remains unresolved. Two disturbing items of news have emerged in recent days which further threaten Irish adoptive families. On Friday, the Vietnamese Government revoked the licence of the Cork-based Helping Hands adoption mediation agency, which is the liaison agency between Vietnam and Irish families who want to adopt children in Vietnam. The licence has been revoked because the Minister of State has not renewed the bilateral agreement on time. What is even more disturbing is the discovery of the text of article 25 of the bilateral agreement, which says-----