Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to bring to the attention of the House statistics published by the Insolvency Service of Ireland today. These show the number of agreements that have been reached in regard to debt are significantly lower than expected. In particular, only four out of 320 deals relating to mortgage debt have been successful since the setting up of the service. The time has come to review the operation of the insolvency service and the legislation which established it. Two issues have become obvious. First, the banks are using their veto to prevent deals relating to mortgage debt and, second, by designating a significant number of borrowers as non-co-operative, they are precluding them from access to the insolvency service.

I find it amazing that non-statutory bodies like banks have the capacity to designate somebody as a non-co-operative borrower when there is no independent right of appeal. We are dealing with a system that is entirely non transparent. For example, people who are separated are being deemed non-co-operative because one party will not sign a document. It is not right that we have a statutory solution, but banks, which are non-statutory bodies, are prohibiting access to that solution. I call on the Leader, as a matter of urgency given the statistics, to bring the Minister to the House to discuss the operation of the legislation and the Insolvency Service of Ireland.