Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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36. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to tackle the increasing number of mortgages on long-term arrears. [37045/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, the Central Bank has the power, from both a prudential and consumer protection perspective, to require banks to meaningfully and sustainably address mortgage arrears cases on their books.  The Central Bank's Mortgage Arrears Resolution Targets (MART) process, as announced in March 2013, sets time bound and measurable targets for the main banks requiring them to systematically address their arrears book.  Under this rolling process, quarterly performance targets have been set to require the banks to propose and put in place durable, long term solutions to address individual cases of mortgages in difficulty where the mortgage is more than 90 days in arrears.  In that context, the Deputy will be aware that the Central Bank has now indicated that it expects that 'proposed' solutions be made in respect of 85% of principal dwelling houses (PDH) and buy-to-let (BTL) arrears cases and that 'concluded' solutions be made with 45% of arrears cases by the end of 2014. 

The Central Bank's Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears (CCMA) sets out requirements for mortgage lenders dealing with those borrowers facing or in mortgage arrears. The CCMA provides a strong consumer protection framework to ensure that borrowers struggling to keep up mortgage repayments are treated in a fair and transparent manner by their lender and that long term resolution is sought by lenders with each of their borrowers in genuine mortgage difficulty.

The Central Bank's latest 'Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions Statistics' publication for the end of Quarter 2 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 (11.8 per cent) primary dwelling mortgage accounts were more than 90 days in arrears, representing a decline of 3% over the quarter.

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 Mortgage Arrears Resolution Targets (MART) has been put in place by my Department.  The latest publication, with data to the end of July, shows that the number of PDH mortgage accounts in arrears of greater than 90 days has fallen by over 7,000 accounts when compared to the end of Q1 2014 while the total number of PDH mortgage arrears has fallen by 8,800 accounts in the same period.

The data published by my Department, as well as the Central Bank data, would appear to demonstrate some success by the lenders in addressing the accounts in mortgage arrears as well as measures to prevent borrowers from going into arrears.  However, increased engagement in this area by the financial institutions will be necessary to address the situation of those remaining householders facing difficulties in meeting their mortgage commitments.