Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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245. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to implement the Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform's report on hearings on matters relating to mortgage arrears resolution processes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33921/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I note the recommendations contained in the Report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform in relation to mortgage arrears.  The Deputy is aware that the Government has developed a comprehensive cross-Departmental strategy in this area in line with the main recommendations of the 2011 Keane Report. The implementation of this strategy is overseen at Government level by a special sub-committee which is chaired by the Taoiseach and at official level by a mortgage arrears steering group which is chaired by the Department of Finance.

The Government has significantly advanced a number of key measures in this regard, including;

1. An intensification by the Central Bank of its engagement with mortgage lenders to require them, under the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Targets (MART) process, to propose and conclude sustainable and durable alternative arrangements with their customers in mortgage arrears. Targets have been set to the end of 2014 and by this date the relevant banks covered by the MART process will be required to have proposed sustainable solutions to 85% of mortgages which are more than 90 days in arrears and to have concluded solutions with 45% of such mortgages;

2. Significant reforms to personal insolvency and the establishment of the Insolvency Service of Ireland, to provide more accessible and flexible statutory frameworks for people with unsustainable personal and mortgage debt to address their position;

3. Updating the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears to provide additional safeguards to cooperating borrowers while also promoting and encouraging efforts by both lenders and borrowers to meaningfully address mortgage arrears or pre-arrears;

4. Mortgage to rent which is now available as a social housing response to allow people to remain in their house, where possible; and

5.The provision of an independent mortgage information and advice service.

The Central Bank's latest 'Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions Statistics' publication for the end of Q2 2014 (), shows that the number of mortgage accounts for principal dwelling houses (PDH) in arrears, fell for the fourth consecutive quarter, and, at the end of June 2014,  90,343 PDH mortgage accounts (11.8 per cent in total) were more than 90 days in arrears, representing a decline of 3% over the quarter.The data also shows that almost 102,000 PDH mortgage accounts were classified as restructured and, of these, 81.2 per cent were deemed to be meeting the terms of their current restructure arrangement.

Separately from Central Bank quarterly reports, a monthly reporting regime on mortgage restructures and arrears for the six main banks covered by the Central Bank's MART process has been put in place by my Department.  The latest publication, with data for the end of July 2014, shows that the number of PDH mortgage accounts in arrears of greater than 90 days has fallen by over 7,100 accounts when compared to the end of Q1 2014 while the total number of PDH mortgage arrears has fallen by 8,845 accounts in the same period.

Taken together, the overall strategy and framework is in place to enable banks to work with distressed homeowners to reach sustainable solutions for dealing with their personal indebted situations.  Nevertheless, relevant Departments and agencies will continue to keep the position under review and can make any further adaptions to the overall framework as considered appropriate.  However, early and effective engagement between borrowers and lenders remain key to resolving most cases of mortgage difficulty.  Where there is effective and meaningful engagement by all parties regarding a mortgage difficulty, the data shows that an increasing number of durable long term mortgage restructures can and is being put in place.