Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2013

Basically this is a technical Bill. I had not intended to speak on it but having heard the inexplicable response of the Opposition, I felt compelled to do so. For whatever reason, whether the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 was flawed as a result of an oversight or some other reason, the courts ruled that a saver in that legislation to do with repossessions and which came under the old legislation did not have the intended effect.. It was found that the saver did not apply. In the current climate that uncertainty in regard to repossessions could not be allowed to persist and, therefore, the Government is seeking to remove that uncertainty. That is all that is planned in the Bill. In effect, we are merely reinstating the law as it was pre-2009 and as the 2009 Act intended it should remain. One can imagine my surprise when I heard at the weekend, last night and today, an Opposition spokesperson refer to the legislation as a plan for wholesale repossessions. Let us bear in mind that this is a Bill which merely affirms a measure the Opposition thought was secured in its own legislation. This would be funny were it not for the fact that so many people are in mortgage difficulties and the last thing they want is dishonest hyperbole and political and populous cant.

In terms of an about-turn, it is matched only by the U-turn on property tax, a tax which the Opposition readily conceded when in Government in return for a bailout. Similarly, it criticised the personal insolvency arrangements but in the same breath criticised the delay in introducing and getting them implemented. It is time for honesty, consistency and realism. I have never come into House to criticise the Opposition but on this occasion I do because people are hurting on all fronts. The recovery from the catastrophe that befell the country and the people is inevitably slow and painful. For some the recovery will come too late and for some it will not come at all. The very least we owe the public is absolute honesty. There is no future for them or for politics in pretending debts do not matter, whether personal, bank or national debts. I understand and feel exactly the same fury at the banks as everyone else for their part in bringing down the country. Like everyone else, I would like to see bankers who sailed off into the sunset penalised bitterly. I would like to see managers who are part of the problem and who are still in place reflect in their salaries some element of apology and regret for their part in what happened to this country. Criticising bankers is one thing but undermining the banking system and its potential for recovery is an another thing. The Opposition, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and everybody knows that the only basis for banking and any lending institution to continue to lend is that there would be a threat of repossession. One cannot break the link between lending risk and security. If so, there will be no basis on which any bank would lend. Why would they? How should they?

It may be an unpalatable truth and I realise people do not want to hear it but the personal insolvency legislation gives people in difficult situations the possibility of gradually sorting out their problems.

It is clear repossession is a last resort option but it must remain an option. There will be no banking lending at all if it is not an option which is not in anybody’s interest. Pretending to oppose that option is dishonest and damaging to the economy. It is damaging because continuing to portray the banks as the big bad wolf is to deny the fact we are the owners of those banks. As their creditors it is in our collective interest as a people that banks should recover and begin to prosper again and ultimately be in a position to pay to the Irish people the money they owe us, which we lent to them. Pretending debt can never be incurred without any risk to the security borrowers freely offered is not fair to the public at large nor is it fair to those who find themselves unable to meet the full terms of their mortgage. It falsely and dishonestly raises their expectations and we owe them better than that.
We all hope the personal insolvency arrangements will solve the majority of mortgage holders’ problems but for some there may be no prospect of extricating themselves without the loss of their home. The least we owe those people is honesty.