Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

Yesterday, I spoke on the issue of tracker mortgages and the plight of those who were moved off trackers by the banks before the banks were ultimately forced to do something. I did, as promised yesterday, write to the Garda Commissioner and it has been passed up the line. Enough has been said about that for now.

As a result of yesterday, I have had several contacts already this morning on the issue of vulture funds. Vulture funds are charging up to 9% on mortgages when the high street banks are charging about 3%. This is daylight robbery. People who are currently paying a vulture fund and have been for some time should go back to the bank with which they originally took out their mortgage and ask can they replace the vulture fund mortgage with a new mortgage with the bank. The difference can be as much as €400 a month, or more depending on the size of the mortgage. People should go to their credit union. People should go to a high street bank or a credit union and look for a mortgage when they can show proof that they have been paying their mortgage to a vulture fund for the last number of years while making repayments on their mortgage. If they are refused by the banks, I ask them to contact my office. I will put my email address where they can contact me out on my social media accounts today. It is absolutely outrageous that the banks that we saved in this country at a cost of €64 billion have flogged off a load of mortgages to a shower of vulture funds that are making massive profits on the loans they have taken over. They are making massive profits and it is unfair on the citizens of this country. The first duty of any country is to protect its citizens. This is the least we can do if there are high street banks that are now reporting profits in the billions of euro. We see PTSB is up for sale at €2.6 billion. Bank of Ireland has returned €1.2 billion and AIB has returned over €900 million in profits this year. Surely these banks can take back on the mortgages of people who are capable of making repayments and allow those families to get some bit of respite. I am asking people now to go back to the banks, get the name of the person they are dealing with if they are refused the mortgage and let us highlight this for full public scrutiny. It is outrageous that people are struggling and banks were telling them two or three years ago what they could and could not buy for groceries.