Tony Mulcahy (Fine Gael)

The Minister is welcome to House. I apologise for not being here earlier as I was attending a committee meeting. I welcome the general thrust of the Bill. Like some other Senators, I have a concern that we are relying on those, the bankers, who made no effort to solve the problem in recent years and we are going to trust them a little bit more to solve the current problem. I have not read the Bill, which I intend to read, but I have read some of the notes on it. Key to this measure are the mortgage facilitators who are the personal insolvency practitioners and the toolkit they will be afforded in bringing about a resolution with the banks. I would appreciate it if the Minister would elaborate on how he envisages that process working because these are the key people. The banks have not made a great effort with their clients to bring about a resolution. I welcome the Bill which is vast in its scope and it sets out a methodology for resolving the crisis, even though we may have to revisit it in a year and a half or two years time.