Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise two issues today. The first relates to the Ulster Bank sale of a €900 million portfolio of mortgages. I understand that 3,600 customers will be affected by the sale who have been engaging with the bank and made various short-term arrangements with it. In January 2019, Fianna Fáil's vulture fund regulation legislation was enacted by the Oireachtas. The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2018 gives the Central Bank the authority to regulate vulture funds and to inspect and investigate the goings on within them. It is now incumbent on the Central Bank to use the powers provided by the legislation. While we cannot, unfortunately, stop this sale, it represents a dereliction of duty on the part of Ulster Bank, which should be dealing with poorly performing loans itself. It should not farm poor loan books out to vulture funds. Ultimately, it is Irish consumers and citizens who will suffer. Fianna Fáil calls on the Cental Bank to put the consumer first and to start to use the powers conferred on it by the Fianna Fáil legislation to ensure the minimum of cruelty, upset and harm is caused to Irish mortgage consumers.

The second issue I raise relates to the living wage and the fact that we do not have one in Ireland. Unemployment is low at the moment but so are salaries, notwithstanding the epidemic of unaffordable rents. For many young people, the prospect of owning a home is completely beyond the realm of possibility. While new legislation has been implemented to extend rent pressure zones, many major urban centres, including, as Senator Murnane O'Connor has pointed out, Carlow have been excluded.We need to do something to ensure that modest increases in salary are not completely taken up by the corresponding increases in rent. It is unfair on young people who are trying to have a life for themselves. The idea of having the security of somewhere to live is gone for many people. The awful housing crisis is a shame on the Government.