Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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166. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will address issues regarding banking rules here which are applied to cross-Border workers resident here (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37676/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The supplementary material provided by the Deputy in respect of this question would appear to refer to the Central Bank statement of 23 November 2016 regarding changes to its macro-prudential mortgage lending rules and which will come into effect from 1 January 2017. These mortgage lending control measures apply to any Central Bank regulated financial provider which provides a mortgage loan which is to be secured on residential property located in the State. However, those regulations do not place any particular residency or currency requirement on relevant loans which would specifically impact on cross border workers resident in the State.

However, the Deputy may also wish to note that the European Union (Consumer Mortgage Credit Agreements) Regulations 2016, which transposed the Mortgage Credit Directive into Irish law, contains certain consumer protection provisions governing the provision of the foreign currency mortgage loans. In particular, it provides that, at the time the foreign currency mortgage agreement is concluded, the consumer borrower will have the right to convert the loan into an alternative currency or that other arrangements be in place to limit the exchange rate risk to which the borrower is exposed. This is a mandatory requirement of the Directive and the transposing Regulations provide that a lender shall ensure that at least one of these options will be available where applicable. It is accepted that this new provision will impose some additional regulatory requirements on an Irish bank when providing foreign currency mortgage loans, but this will also need to be considered against the additional protections which will now be available to consumer borrowers who enter into such credit contracts. While it is and remains a commercial matter for individual lenders to decide on the type and nature of credit it wishes to offer consumers, either in general or in an individual case, I would expect lenders to be in a position to adjust their systems and practices to take on board evolving and legal requirements which have the primary objective of increasing the protections available to consumer mortgage borrowers including those in relation to foreign currency mortgage loans as provided for in the Mortgage Credit Directive.