Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to Senator Fidelma Healy Eames informing the House what she has learned from the Government about lobbying by the banks to have the Bill suit their interests. If the legislation suits the banks, it will not suit citizens or those who owe money to the banks. One in five mortgages is in distress and a new group of vulnerable people, namely, the middle class, has emerged. The Minister for Social Protection has made a bizarre call on the banks to offer reasonable mechanisms and help their fellow citizens. The banks will only help themselves. Their directors will do nothing other than make profit in order that they can pay themselves large salaries and bonuses. Calling on the banks to do anything other than make a profit is nothing short of living in cloud-cuckoo-land.

The only way the Minister can help people is to regulate the banks in terms of dealing with those in distress because of arrears and the new vulnerable, namely, people who are struggling to pay their mortgages. They are still paying their mortgages but as we know from the case of the Garda sergeant who had to seek help from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, they barely have enough money to eat. The Government is calling on the banks to make a decision but it is the Government which must make a decision. It must legislate for the banks to act because they will not do anything other than make profit. Expecting anything else from the banks is not living in the real world. In terms of calling on the banks to do something-----