"Variable rates set to become major issue in General Election"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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According to Charlie Weston in today's Indo

Variable rates set to become major issue in General Election

quoting One Big Switch

The high interest rates charged on variable mortgages are set to be a General Election issue with more than half of people surveyed on the topic saying it will influence their vote.


The survey also shows consumers feel TDs do not understand the financial pain caused by high mortgage rates.

The poll by the One Big Switch campaign found that 53pc of respondents agreed that high mortgage rates would have a significant influence on how they will vote in the next election.

Some 65pc of consumers believe their TD has no, or very little, understanding of the financial stress caused by variable rates that are among the highest in the eurozone, according to a poll of 1,600 of the 6,000 mortgage holders who have registered with the One Big Switch.
 
The reporting of the poll results was pretty poor and misleading. The poll was of members of the Big Switch website - those who feel exercised enough about the issue to get involved in campaigning about it. So of course a large number of those people feel it's a major issue in the general election - the big surprise for me is that the % wasn't higher.

If it was an independent poll of randomly selected voters. then the TDs might sit up and take notice. But this is a group of single-interest people agreeing that their interest is important. I'm not saying it's not (I have a variable mortgage) but this poll isn't an indication that the issue is important to everybody in the country and will have widescale influence on voting.
 
In terms of political presence Michael McGrath deserves allot of credit for raising this issue.
 
I do not see the Mortgage issue becoming a MAJOR issue during the election for the following reasons
How many people that could switch mortgages to other providers even with incentives from other providers. I would wager a very low %
Given that there was a fair bit of publicity and effort put into organising an open meeting re high mortgage rates earlier in the year it was amazing how few turned up to the meeting.
What party can show a credible solution to lower mortgage rates and I mean a credible solution that works.
My long held belief is that the solution to lower mortgage rates is a new competitor in the market that can attract a meaningful amount of customers very quickly which would mean giving a rate of 1% lower than the current lowest rate.
Under the current system there is no chance of this happening and to hope that some bank would consider this the following changes would need to be made at the very minimum with both Homes and BTL's
Reform the whole mess of repossession and reduce the process to less than 9 months including the courts system.
I would also allow a max of 6 months to deal with BTL's
The current situation with repossession is that a lot of decent mortgage holders are paying a very high price for the repossession farce. There might be quite a number of people who are borderline in trouble that might be capable of getting themselves out of trouble if rates were reduced by 1% which would be an added bonus.
No political party is going to produce any radical change to speed up repossessions this side of the election. If they did, think of the Banner headlines in the media and the fall out from that.
You could argue that this is what needs to be done to create the environment for a new competitor to enter the market but how do you convince enough people that the competitor would materialise and would deliver a 1% reduction.
You would likely loose the argument in the media and yet be right.
 
Hi dermot , you're post makes huge sense just like you did when we spoke on the phone last year. I would like to see a public campaign coming together soon as the campaign ll be starting soon. I feel that it's our last chance to get some publicity for the campaign and would help out including in the publicity end of it, if say Brendan or someone from the previous committee was to act as a figurehead, someone who has a large amount of financial knowledge and background. Just like the meeting though with the honourable exception of some people on this site the will to do something . doesn't seem to be there. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong and that will does exist as the banks have got away with it for so long but for me it's up to us to make it an election issue and to embarrass the he'll out of the government at every opportunity because I don't see becoming an issue otherwise. It has decided my vote and because he's given us the best support Michael mcgrath colleague in my constituency of dublin West will be getting my no 1. I personally am sure I'm not the only one who is about to get an even greater reason to get involved in a public campaign with my mortgage interest relief going from 166.67 down to 37.50 this month and the government telling us were doing better now so vote for us. I like everyone gained from the use reduction and being a public servant also gained from the previous reduction but despite this I'm still losing money. Recovery my are.
 
I actually completely agree with Dermot here. This issue will not come into play in any election discussions. I have repeatedly tried to engage my local TD's and election candidates on this, and they are simply ignoring me on it. My last communications with Fine Gael on this was not around reducing the rates, but ensuring that rates offered to new customers are available to existing customers on the same products. There has been no responses from any of them. It is simply not a big enough issue for the electorate to get embroiled in.

While Michael McGrath has been prominent in the discussions, how effective would the proposed bill really be? My strong preference would be the abolishment of SVR rates completely, and have all rates either fixed or tracker rates based off either ECB or EURIBOR. I am not saying these need to be sub-1% trackers, but they need to be based on something concrete that allows long term comparison of products. A favourable SVR rate today may not be favourable tomorrow [e.g. bank A = 3.5% bank B 3.6%], a favourable tracker [bank A 2% over EURIBOR versus bank B 1.75% over EURIBOR] would always be favourable. One of the big challenges currently is any decision around what bank to pick is based on their past behaviours and this is always a dangerous method.

However, while this issue will be raised with every candidate which passes by my door, nothing will be done on this either before or after the election without a serious upsurge in switcher mortgages. This is unlikely to happen given the track record over the last 12 months or so.
 
Dermot/gnf.

If by now Variable rate mortgages havn,t hit voting intentions , then SVR,s are nothing but a side issue.
People just seem not to worry about being stolen from, when its in an organised thievery.
Yet people seem to get exercised over 5p here and there! on small items,

We have permitted messing on tracker rates , minimal recompense on Payment protection insurance etc,
Are we the fighting Irish or the stupid Irish? We pretend we sort things , instead we rely on our (betters) and (government) to act well !

Sorry to sound crankey.
 
Hi Gerry, I couldn't agree with you more, my frustration was expressed in my thread regarding public protest but it's become very apparent that that won't be happening nor will this be a major issue in the upcoming campaign as there are too few of us willing to act on this. As you correctly say people in this country's fight you over 5p and laudable as their efforts are the numbers of people fighting the water charges which relates to a lot less money than what we're arguing about. I'd love to know how many of the people who marched in those protests have an SVR mortgage. As you also say about the fighting irish vis a vis the stupid irish if only those people realised that the money they're losing on their mortgages works out at about 20 times more than what water charges are. Maybe it's a case of us irish believing that we're cleverer than we actually are as there's been more than enough publicity about SVR'S that most should be aware of the issue and what's involved or maybe we've just become a much lazier, indifferent people than we once we're.
 
but someone is needed to organise the protest? It is something that concerns lots of people myself included - it is something I will be questioning when politicians come looking for my vote. I have had a lot of leaflets in my door lately and not a mention of SVR rates on any one of them!
 
Correct re organisation of a protest. I would happily get centrally involved but we would need more people to help out with it. From what I'm seeing we haven't got the numbers to do it the way I'd like to do it, eg public protests outside places like the central bank, bank hqs, the Dail and government TDS offices/clinics especially ministers. I've written emails to local TDS etc and also intend to question them. By all means we could take the bull by the horns and just go and do a protest but I feel we just won't get the numbers to run a proper pre - election one. A lot was put into running the meeting in the burlington last year and the crowd wasn't very large even though it did garner a lot of publicity.
 
I didn't go to the Burlington mainly because it was in Dublin and was too difficult for me to get to both in terms of the time it was on and the place, I really think if it was more central more people would attend.
 
That's fair enough as you're not the first person who had those issues. To be fair to the people like dermot who did so I personally wasn't involved in running it but I was fortunate enough to be able to make it to it. That may well be true re a central location but the general feeling on the night was the attendance was on the disappointing, possibly for the reasons you outlined but o don't think that was the only one, about 130-140 did make it and seating for 200 was supplied. A lot of good came from it for me re ideas from the floor etc but the main benefit was the publicity , it made the 9 o clock news. I previously sidestep running one centrally in tullamore and was hoping that if I got a few responses on this forum it would encourage me to go for it but the response was negligible which meant I wasn't. I would love to see something happen even a meeting between a few of us which I would gladly attend to see what if anything we could organise either before or during the campaign as I think this could be our last chance . Anyone with ideas or opinions are obviously welcome to voice them but if I was doing anything it'd be in a small meeting room somewhere in central dublin as I wouldn't be prepared to risk too much as a small attendance could leave me with a bill
 
I agree with you re protest - I seriously doubt it will happen. The vast majority will sit back and not protest, and wait for change. As a nation we are not a protesting one. We are not like the Greeks, French, Spanish etc in that regard. That's why the water protests took the government by surprise - it was not expected in those numbers repeatedly ! The SVR issue would need to see 20-25k people on the streets for it to become a serious issue this close to the election.

Realistically can these sorts of numbers be convened this close to an election? unlikely

But sadly its not just the protest. If you look at this site, the activity on this forum has also dropped off hugely over the last while. Only 9 threads have been created or commented on since 1st December 2015. Back in the summer it would easily have been a multiple of this.

Despite the good work of some on here in particular, this issue is simply not going anywhere. The government know it, the politicians know it, the central bank knows it and more importantly the banks know it. Any momentum that was there when Minister Noonan called the banks in back in July & September is now gone, simply because not enough people switched. Had people switched, it would have created a market where they would have taken notice.

I agree all of this is not fair. I agree that the water charges are a fraction of the money most people are being hit for with their mortgages. I agree with all of this - but sadly the interest in the SVR issue no longer exists for it to be an election issue.

Sorry to be pessimistic on this, but I have followed this very closely for the last 14 months, and I really believe that the opportunity is lost unless there is a change of government later in the Spring. Nothing will happen if the current government get back into power
 
The real problem is that people with mortgages are usually married and working. They don't have time to protest. The Water Charges protestors are made up of a core of unemployed people and the rest just piggy backed on to it.
 
elcato said:
The real problem is that people with mortgages are usually married and working. They don't have time to protest. The Water Charges protestors are made up of a core of unemployed people and the rest just piggy backed on to it.
Click to expand...


Probably not the most politically correct post thats ever been submitted, but one i agree with 100 per cent
 
celticbhoy32 said:
Probably not the most politically correct post thats ever been submitted, but one i agree with 100 per cent
Click to expand...
I think you have a point but I also am wondering if there's a relatively large portion of the 300k svr holders see public protest as below them. This could be due to some of the tactics the water campaign used which I don't condone but i cant help thinking that there are wuite a few snobs among our number.Other than that it's a case of life doesn't give people time or they just can't be bothered or they don't realise how much they're being screwed for which shouldn't be a factor with the publicity the campaign was getting.
 
elcato said:
The real problem is that people with mortgages are usually married and working. They don't have time to protest. The Water Charges protestors are made up of a core of unemployed people and the rest just piggy backed on to it.
Click to expand...




What percentage of the people are not paying their water bills?
 
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