Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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73. To ask the Minister for Finance using records available to his Department and the Central Bank of Ireland, if he will provide details, for each financial institution with a banking licence, separate from the number and book value of residential and buy-to-let mortgages sold between 2010 to date in 2015; if he will identify the purchaser of the mortgage book in each case; if he will confirm, in each case, whether the purchaser is a regulated entity here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8701/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by the Central Bank of Ireland that where regulated financial institutions sell part, or all, of their mortgage book to another regulated financial institution, the same protections apply to borrowers, including the CCMA and the Consumer Protection Code. Any agent acting on behalf of a regulated lender must comply with the requirements of Irish financial services law and failure to do so may result in the Central Bank imposing penalties on the regulated lender concerned.   

I am also informed by the Central Bank that it has also communicated to firms its preference that the outcome of any sale of mortgage books by regulated entities would ensure continuity of borrower protections under Codes and also that the purchaser would have relevant policies and procedures, systems and control checks to appropriately manage a mortgage loan book. 

In relation to the sale or transfer of loan books to third parties, Provision 3.11 of the 2012 Consumer Protection Code requires that regulated entities subject to that Code notify the Central Bank immediately where they intend to transfer all or part of their regulated activities to another regulated entity. In general however, the Central Bank has no role in approving the sale or transfer of loan books to third parties, and it has no data available at this time on the number and book value of such sales or transfers for the period requested.  In addition, by virtue of an exemption in Part V of the Central Bank Act 1997, an unregulated entity to whom a cash loan is transferred by a regulated entity is not currently subject to Central Bank supervision under the Consumer Protection Code and CCMA.

However, I understand that most purchasers of loan books have stated they are voluntarily complying with the Codes. Of course voluntary compliance is not enforceable. In order to ensure that consumers maintain these protections, the Government committed in March 2014 to bringing forward legislation to protect consumers whose loans are sold to unregulated entities.

The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015 was published in January and second stage of the Bill was taken in the Dáil on 4 February. Since then, my officials have been in contact with the Central Bank and with the Office of the Attorney General to further progress the legislation. It remains my intention to ensure that borrowers whose loans are sold by a regulated entity to a currently unregulated entity maintain the same protections as they had prior to the sale. The Bill will continue its progress through the legislative process and I look forward to further discussion of the Bill at Committee Stage.

In relation to the data requested by the Deputy, I said in PQ 42363 on 5 November last that  information from company announcements in the public domain, would suggest that between 8,000 and 10,000 mortgages in total have been sold to unregulated entities in recent years. Since then, I understand that approximately 6,000 mortgages were sold by IBRC.