Aideen Hayden (Labour)

Like a number of other speakers I welcome the move on the promissory notes and the recognition internationally that we are making an effort as a country and that we need movement to allow the country to grow and move on. More than 100,000 families would like the same type of consideration. These are the 100,000 families in mortgage arrears who cannot move on with their lives until we come to a settlement about these mortgages. I call for a further debate on the Keane report. We have been waiting for a considerable period of time to see real movement on the measures proposed in the report such as split mortgages and debt to shared equity. The Government has had its share of understanding and it is time we gave the same understanding to the households in this country which face disaster every day.

I am disturbed to see how lending institutions use any opportunity to remove people from tracker mortgages. I agree with the call for a wide debate on the Keane report and on the behaviour of the banking sector. I am also concerned to see calls for wider access for lending institutions to those in mortgage arrears, in other words that they should be allowed to speak on a more frequent basis with mortgage holders in arrears and also with mortgage holders whom they believe will fall into arrears. There is a dangerous suggestion that lending institutions should have wider access to accounts not related to mortgage accounts to identify customers in pre-arrears situations. We should be quite vigilant when dealing with financial institutions. I call for an emergency debate as soon as possible on the Keane report.