Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Labour)
http://www.kildarestreet.com/debate/?id=2012-03-13.631.11I will try to be as brief as possible. On this issue, we should forgo the usual political point scoring and posturing, which is a feature of debates on Private Members’ motions.
This issue affects far too many people in our society for us to engage in the type of bating we have witnessed in the past. Be they families burdened with large mortgage repayments or businesses struggling to access credit, they and the economy need a resolution to this issue.
There is much to commend in the motion from Fianna Fáil. The history of how we got to this point has little relevance for the families seeking a solution to this issue. Individuals and businesses trying to stay in business are struggling to keep their heads above water. The only thing that matters to the people affected is what the future holds and not what the past has delivered to us.
Every week worried parents struggling to keep their homes contact me. As the previous speaker stated, the banks, Permanent TSB in particular, which owe their very survival to the actions of the Irish State and the Irish people, played a large role in bringing our people to the sorry state in which we now find ourselves. Necessity meant that the banking system had to be saved but the time for pay-back is soon approaching. Justice, and now necessity, demand that.
Unfortunately, attempts to address these matters are not straightforward as in many cases they are interlocking arrangements and, in some ways, are contradictory in their aims. As the Minister, Deputy Noonan, indicated at the start of this week, negotiations are under way on the issue of the Anglo Irish Bank promissory notes. Along side that the Government is negotiating to move tracker mortgages from other banks to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, thereby taking some pressure off the margins of those banks that are playing havoc in the context of the mortgage situation.
The gap of more than 2% between the variable mortgage rate and AIB and Permanent TSB is punitive, particularly given that normal market forces cannot operate because of, as the motion notes, the inability of people to move mortgages from one institution to another. As normal market forces are not currently present to act as a correction on the activities of Permanent TSB, there is a strong case for intervention by the State, either through regulation or political pressure.