David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I welcome the Minister of State to the House.

This is an extremely important Bill and I am relieved that it has been allowed in the Seanad because there were questions about whether it would create a charge on the Exchequer. I asked the Master of the High Court, Mr. Ed Honohan, who is largely responsible for preparing the Bill, if this was the case and he stated definitively, "No". The other aspect that might have created problems is the question of property rights. In light of the fact that the public good in the Constitution trumps every other right, I have never understood why Governments have not had the guts to appeal to the public good in passing legislation.

I pay particular tribute to two persons: Ed Honohan, who produced the Bill, and Deputy John McGuinness, who is in the process of introducing it in Dáil Éireann. They both have done a very great deal of work on it.

Yesterday, we held a press conference in Buswells Hotel and the only people to appear there were from The Irish Timesand RTE radio. I saw nothing whatever reported about this, which is extraordinary. Those present were Mr. Mike Allen from Focus Ireland, Fr. Peter McVerry from the McVerry trust, Mr. Austin Byrne from Right 2 Homes, Mr. David Hall from the Irish Mortgage Holders' Organisation, Mr. Jerry Beades, Mr. Brian Reilly and Ms Caroline Lennon-Nally.

I look at the Press Gallery and I see nobody there. That is most disappointing. If there are any reporters listening to or watching this on their units in their offices, I appeal to them to take note of this debate and to report it in some detail.

Neither I nor Right 2 Homes and the others involved claim that this Bill is perfect. It is the start of a debate. We would like the Government to take note of it. We would like the Government and my other colleagues here today to put down amendments to make it a good Bill. We will not try to rush it through.The debate has been allocated one hour and 45 minutes and the Bill will be left in suspended animation on the Order Paper in order that it can be continued because we believe in co-operation. This issue is a disaster facing this country. If members of the public realised what was coming down the line, they would be in a panic. The authorities cannot deal with 7,000 people being homeless. They are incapable of dealing with that. What happens when that number increases to 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 or 50,000 people, as will surely happen when Allied Irish Banks, under the instructions of the European Central Bank, unloads the distressed mortgages? I would like to put in the figures but I cannot give any definite figures because there is quite a range of figures available to people. In terms of people's right to a home, the number of accounts is 60,000, the number of people directly affected is about 250,000, and the total debt outstanding is €14 billion. I cannot confirm that because there is a dearth of demographic and statistical information. One of the first things we need to do is to scope the complete dimension of the problem. However, we have some figures from the Central Bank. On 31 March this year, there was a total of €8.8 billion in outstanding balances on mortgages in arrears for more than an year on private homes, covering 41,000 accounts in total. The total in arrears on private homes came to €2.6 billion. In March of this year, private home accounts in arrears for more than a year made up 5.6% of all residential mortgage accounts. Clearly, we have a very serious problem facing this country.

Have people forgotten that eviction is a dirty word in this country? Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt throughout the 19th century fought against eviction. I find it astonishing that an Irish Republic should stand over eviction, and not only that but that it should invite the vulture funds into this country to buy up the slack and make a profit out of it. There is no other motive in vulture funds, other than vulgar profiteering. What has happened here, just as at the time of the Famine, is that a rigid economic theory is being implemented as if we were some kind of a laboratory experiment but we are dealing with real people. We are dealing with human misery. We are dealing with people who for years have been tortured by financial worries. When I look at the European Central Bank it makes me grimace. These were the people who illegally forced this country into redeeming the bonds of bondholders and taking on board the gambling debts of the Irish banks, and then they turned around and did precisely the opposite in Cyprus, so there was no principle involved. We paid out €65 billion. The bondholders were laughing all the way to the banks. Some of them bought up the bonds at 5% of their face value and the Irish taxpayer was forced to redeem them at 100% of their face value. When the vulture funds move into this country, take over the distressed mortgages and evict people, guess what the cherry on the pie is. The Irish taxpayer will be presented with the bill for the evictions. They can be very costly, involving the cost of helicopters, the police, the sheriff's office, dogs - the whole works. It is like forcing the Jews to pay for their own execution during the Second World War. It is an absolute disgrace. To think that the Government gave them charitable status, what in the name of Christ is charitable about the vulture funds? They were given that status so they do not have to pay tax. They got away with €77 million in profits and they did not pay a single red cent to the Irish taxpayer under their deeds.

I find this quite an extraordinary situation for any Government in which to find itself. I am very glad the Green Party, People before Profit and all the small parties have supported this Bill. I have spoken to my friends and my colleagues about this Bill. Senator Colm Burke said on the Order of Business this morning that this was a very important Bill, that there were things wrong with it, which I accept, but that it should be debated in this House and left on the Order Paper. All the smaller parties support it. I have spoken to my friends in the major parties and they have all agreed in principle with this Bill. How could they do anything else? That wonderful man, the Jesuit, Fr. Peter McVerry, said he did not know how anybody in Ireland could not support this Bill. It is inarguable; there is no case against it. The Bill is not perfect. It is intended to start a discussion on this issue.

What has happened here can be seen right across the Continent of Europe and in United States of America, and it is the reason Donald Trump got elected and it is the reason for Brexit. At the time of the financial crisis when this was just beginning I asked the Government to institute a Minister for home protection, not homeland protection, not a neurotic reaction to a perceived terrorist threat, but a reaction to the threat of people being evicted from their homes, a Minister for home protection to ensure Irish citizens would have a roof over their heads. Ireland is unusual in Europe in that we have a very large amount of home ownership. There is a something in Ireland about land and about people having their own home, not renting but owning their home and having that to which to go home.

With regard to the banks, they have learned nothing. They are precisely the same as they were before the financial crisis. The banks have taken it upon themselves to close down campaigns. I will not specify all of them but the Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is one. It was a good decent peaceful campaigning organisation but the banks decided unilaterally to close down its accounts. They have also closed down the accounts of some embassies in Ireland. That was bloody high-handed of them, in particular given the Government has such a large stake in these banks. They also started charging outrageous and illegal interest rates, which forced some people into losing their homes and some people into losing their lives. I remember at the beginning of this crisis somebody saying fatuously: " Well, nobody lost their life." Quite a few people, put under this enormous financial terror, have taken the ultimate step to take their own lives.

This Bill proposes to create a new agency, a national housing co-operative, which will move in when groups like Allied Irish Banks unload this enormous number of shares, creating a possible avalanche of homelessness. The housing co-operative will take over the distressed mortgages at the current level of value. It will then rent them back or remortgage them to the original owners in order that they can stay in their houses. That is a really good response.

I do not understand how the bloody vulture funds got into this country in the first place and how they were given this privileged status. I like the former Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan. He has been an admirable, honourable politician, but I do not know how anybody could say that vultures were a good idea because they cleaned up corpses. I cannot understand how any Minister in an Irish Government could make such a gaffe. What we are talking about here is not a bird, snake or animal corpse but the corpse of the well-being of Irish citizens.I am happy to move this Bill, particularly in a period when somebody like Mike Allen, director of advocacy at Focus Ireland, says that no strategy to tackle our housing crisis can succeed unless it stems the flow of families losing their homes on a daily basis. In Dublin this year, over 70 families a month lost their homes. Let us just think about that. That means 70 ordinary families losing their homes.

I will finish on this as I understand that I have a few minutes left. The capital required would be secured by a 20-year bond secured against the properties and we believe that we would have the backing of major international financial institutions to do so. This is because long-term 20-year loans are at a uniquely low level and the financial institutions are looking for something good that is guaranteed to take up. It is for that reason that this Bill creates no charge on the Exchequer.

We should ashamed of ourselves as an Oireachtas if we do not take on this issue. I would like to quote Edmund Honohan, Master of the High Court, when he addressed us in both Houses of the Oireachtas. He said:

Gentlemen [he should of course have said Gentlewomen as well but we will forgive him, he is, after all, the Master and not the Mistress of the High Court] you are the gatekeepers of legislation. Do not pass the buck.

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach.