Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We need to recognise these interest rates are fundamentally immoral. They are absolutely outrageous. My colleague, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, put it well in the Dáil. She said, "This Government never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity", to do the right thing.

The most important part of this Bill is that the Government is apparently still happy for these extortionist moneylenders to charge €480 interest per year on a €1,000 loan. I ask the Minister of State to tell me how he justifies that. I grew up in London in a working-class community. Moneylenders were an absolute horror. I am lost for words to describe the damage they did predominantly to my community, the London Irish community in north London, at that time. In the areas we look after in particular - Sinn Féin as a working-class party - we know the damage these moneylenders do. The Government has an opportunity to do something right here.

Maybe it should have a look at what has happened in the rest of Europe. These high interest rates were described as excessive in Spain, as unconscionable in Finland and in Germany as lacking in moral legitimacy. The interest rate cap proposed in the Bill does not go far enough and we cannot allow such a financial regime that damages the economic interests of borrowers to continue. We must understand those who use moneylenders are the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Much of the time they are locked out of the normal banking system and pushed towards moneylenders as a consequence. They can end up clocking up vast amounts in interest. We all know this. This is why Sinn Féin introduced its own Bill, which would have limited interest rates to three times the market average, which is much less than in the Government Bill.

We will press amendments on Committee Stage. I am not optimistic given the Minister of State rejected them in the Dáil but it is never too late to do the right thing. When we think of the damage these moneylenders do, especially to the weakest and most vulnerable, the idea this Government is suggesting it is good news - in the time of a cost-of-living crisis that is the worst we have seen in many years - that lenders can charge €480 per year on a €1,000 loan is never going to be acceptable.