Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I definitely will not take the ten minutes. Sinn Féin will be supporting the Bill. We welcome this debate, notwithstanding the delay with the Bill moving from the Dáil to the Seanad. The Minister listened to my colleague Deputy Pearse Doherty and made amendments in the Dáil.

As reported in today's edition of the Irish Examiner, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman or ombudsperson, as we must say, saw a significant increase in complaints relating to insurance and fraud throughout the course of 2024, as the total number of complaints it received surpassed 6,000 for the second year in a row. This clearly shows the need for the legislation before us. It also shows that the but also that the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman's office should be resourced appropriately to carry out its work.

I want to talk about an issue which relates directly to thousands of families the Laois constituency in which I live and across the State and which I feel really strongly about, namely mortgage interest rates of more than 8.5%. That is a horror faced by 7,000 people who are trapped with vulture funds. A total of 100,000 people saw their mortgage interest rates go above 6% last year. For a €300,000 mortgage, 6% means you are paying €1,800 a month. That is over €6,000 a year more than someone on a rate of 3%. Someone on 8.5% is paying over €12,000 more a year. These vulture funds bought up mortgages on the cheap and are now squeezing people for every penny they have at a time when the cost of living is at an all-time high. This is an injustice that has been forced on them as a result of Government policy. That is the reality of the vulture funds. It is not the fairy tale that is told by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It was promised that the terms would remain the same but, sadly, that has not proven to be the case. The vultures are living up to their name. The Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, once stated that he would not mind if his mortgage was with a vulture fund. A person in the constituency in which I live asked me if the Minister would be happy to pay an 8.5% interest rate. We have to stop ignoring the scandal with vulture funds and give these mortgage prisoners a way back to traditional banks.