Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister was not in the Chamber. I will reiterate some of the points briefly. I said that I felt the timing of the legislation was unfortunate for a number of reasons that I will not outline again. I am not like King Canute. I do not believe we can turn back the tide. We need a functioning mortgage market and a functioning banking system. This is a technical amendment relating to a bank or any other lender being able to rely on a mortgage document. Let us not lose the run of ourselves completely. On Second Stage I said that it is by and large a technical amendment, mistimed unfortunately owing to the lack of confidence in the banking system among the general public.

However, it is a necessary amendment. It is important that we have a functioning mortgage market, which we do not have at present.