Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome. I am grateful that he and the Government are grasping this nettle because we know there has been a lot of fallout from personal indebtedness as a result of the crisis that has befallen our country. What struck me hard recently is that while our public debt is at a ratio of 120% debt to GDP, our personal and household debt is at 130%. That really shows the scale of the problem. Taking all the figures together, one in five mortgages were in difficulty at the end of June, which involves 20% of our people. We still have no Central Bank figures on unsecured loans at this point. The available figures only represent mortgage debt, which involves 168,000 householders, not including personal or credit card loans.

I welcome the Bill but as Minister Bradford said-----