Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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169. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of properties taken into possession by each of the State backed banks in each of the past 12 months; the number in their possession at the beginning of each month, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5388/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is not available within the Department of Finance.

As the Deputy is aware, the Relationship Framework agreements define the arm's-length nature of the relationship between the State and the banks in which the State has an investment, and as such each bank is individually and independently responsible for managing their stock of repossessed properties. As noted in the annual reports cited below, repossessed properties are offered for sale by the banks using external agents as soon as practicable. 

All disclosures in relation to AIB's residential mortgages properties in possession can be found on page 53 of AIB's Half-Yearly Financial Report 2016 which can be found here: .

Bank of Ireland disclose information on properties in possession and repossessions disposed of for their Retail Ireland Mortgage portfolio on page 370 of their annual report. A link to the 2015 Bank of Ireland report is available here:

From the 1st January 2016 to  the 31st Dec 2016, permanent tsb took possession of 116 properties; just 11 of these were a result of an Executed Order (i.e. a repossession achieved through the courts) while the remaining were properties which were either surrendered to the bank voluntarily by their owners or properties where the bank took repossession because it deemed the properties to be at risk (typically left vacant by owners). At the 31st December 2016 the bank had a total of 463 properties in its possession.

I would also draw the Deputy's attention to the most recent mortgage arrears and repossession statistics released by the Central Bank: https://www.centralbank.ie/polstats/stats/mortgagearrears/Documents/2016q3_ie_mortgage_arrears_statistics.pdf.