Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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Question 121: To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to make the mortgage rates of the various lenders in the financial market come out more to be in line with the ECB rate. [35820/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Credit institutions are not primarily or always funded from the ECB, but rather from a variety of sources. Neither the Central Bank nor I, as Minister for Finance, have any statutory role in the setting of interest rates charged or paid by financial institutions regulated by the Central Bank.

Based on the advice received from the Central Bank, I have no plans to recommend to Government that legislation be introduced to compel lenders to reduce their standard variable rates. The question of how interest rates paid on deposits should be treated would also have to be considered in the context of such legislation. However, I will keep the matter under review. The Central Bank have also informed me that they will engage with lenders which appear to have standard variable rates set disproportionate to their cost of funds.