Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As Senator Mooney noted, we had a detailed discussion on this yesterday. Since the bank crash in 2008 the Department has spent €319 million on the payment. Reference has been made to other solutions. I only wish that some of that had gone on mortgage-to-rent solutions. I gave some examples yesterday. Essentially, we have ended up in some cases paying between €50,000 to €66,000 of interest on behalf of people. That is interest for the banks, it does not go to the individuals. To be honest, the poor families involved have ended up in no better state and have exhausted five or six years on interest-only payments paid for by the Department. With the advent of the Insolvency Service of Ireland, the mortgage arrears process and the development - slowly, I acknowledge - of other solutions such as mortgage-to-rent, there are alternatives. The only people who are laughing all the way to the bank in respect of this particular scheme are those in the banks. I believe the mortgage arrears process will provide a far better way.

Someone raised the issue of rent supplement. We hope to move rent supplement to the local authorities because in each of the schemes there is a problem relating to people in many cases being in effect disbarred from going back to work. A considerable number of the people are six or seven years in receipt and many of these were formerly in the building trade. Basically, they are locked out of being able to go to work but their overall situation with the bank is not improving. I believe the new solutions the Government has put in place will offer a better outcome eventually, even though those outcomes are only in the process of being established.

I was interested to hear the comments of Mr. Hall, whose organisation is arranging to work with AIB. We must move to sustainable solutions for families which let them keep their family home, resolve the debt and, in particular, enable them to get back to work in order that they can become financially independent.