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“I THINK IT is time to see a little bit of humility from our banks,” said Health Minister Simon Harris when asked about the €4 billion mortgage sale by Permanent TSB today.
The statement from the minister comes a day after a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in which members raised concerns that the government is coming across as the “spokespeople for the banks”.
PTSB, which is 75% State owned, has been defending its plan to sell off a book of non-performing loans known as Project Glas.
The proposed sell-off of 18,000 properties, including 14,000 private dwelling homes, has become the subject of a political battle in recent days.
Yesterday, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe conceded that even homeowners who engaged with the bank could find their mortgage arrangements with PTSB are not honoured by the buyer.
Speaking about the issue today, Harris said the government had to “find a balance” whereby they protect mortgage holders, but also ensure there is a stable banking system.
Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty said PTSB has been invited to appear before the Oireachtas Finance Committee next Tuesday.
Doherty told the Dáil the bank has informed the committee that it has already entered into “confidentiality clauses” with interested parties and would be restricted in speaking about certain issues. A formal invitation has been issued to the bank today.
“The train has left the station – these are vulture funds,” he said, referring to the interested parties.
‘Time to see a bit of humility’
Harris said PTSB should appear before the Oireachtas Finance Committee:
I think PTSB should go before an Oireachtas committee. I think it is time to see a little bit of humility from our banks – banks that the taxpayers of this country have supported through very, very difficult times.
I think they could do an awful lot worse than show a little bit of humility and engage with the people’s representatives. I think that should happen, that is a matter for the bank, but that is my personal view.
Harris said Minister Donohoe had a “constructive” meeting with Fianna Fáil’s Finance spokesperson Michael McGrath about a new Bill, due to be introduced next week, which seeks to regulate the vulture funds.
He said the government wanted to work with all parties on the issue.
Minister says the loans have not been sold
The health minister said there is time to tackle the issue as the loans have not been sold and the finance minister has not been consulted yet. “There will be time to engage,” he said.
However, Harris said people listening to the debate may get worried when they hear statements like: “The train has left the station.”
He maintained a decision on the sale has not been made nor has a decision been made about the potential buyer.
“Please don’t scare people,” he told Doherty.
The Sinn Féin spokesperson said that it was time to “insert some honesty” into the debate.
While he said he is in favour of regulating the vulture funds, it will not be the “magical solution”.
‘Vulture funds don’t do long-term solutions’
Even if vulture funds are regulated, long-term loans should not be sold to them under any circumstances, he insisted.
“They are only interested in the short-term turnaround and the quick turnaround,” said the Donegal TD, who said unlike banks they do not have a public persona or reputation to keep up.
Citing Central Bank figures, Doherty said 120,000 home mortgages were restructured by the end of September 2017 – with the vast majority (87%) of these accounts meeting the terms of the restructured arrangements.
However, he told the minister all of these deals done with customers were done by regular banks, not vulture funds.
He said vulture funds don’t offer the suite of options mentioned above, because they don’t have to.
“They [vulture funds] don’t do split mortgages, they don’t do interest only, they don’t do arrears capitalisation,” he said.
Doherty told Harris that families at home and renters in the buy-to-lets due to be sold “are hoping and praying that you will stand up to the vultures and stop this sale”.
The Sinn Féin TD said the government must tell PTSB that it is not allowed to sell long-term family products to vulture funds who only have a short-term interest.
If you sell long-term products to companies that have a three or five-year interest, it will only end in one way and that is repossessions, that is people being evicted, that is more homelessness and we cannot stand here as legislators and pretend that there is some sort of magic solution.
You own 75% [of the bank]. Lift the phone, tell Jeremy Masding [PTSB CEO] the government refuse to stand idly by while you are about to throw your customers to the wolves just because you didn’t get your act in order over the last three years and work those mortgages down the way that you should have.
Harris said he is conscious that some homeowners are “concerned” and “worried”.
He said the government would work towards providing “maximum security, clarity and assurance” to mortgage holders.
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These projects are really good for kids. And teachers like that are worth their weight in gold.
@Marg murphy,
They’re not kids, they’re 18-22 year olds, and this looks like something you would see in the jungle.
Talk about dumbing down.
@eamon go back to bed
@Donnacha Bhoicaire,
You’re easily impressed, no wonder Ireland’s colleges have such low rankings.
GMIT is far behind MIT.
@eamonn. I should have read beyond the first line the article where I read “schoolchild”. I thought it was a primary school project.
@Marg murphy,
Yes, if it was young children who built it, then it would be impressive.
Eamon Mac I really feel sorry for you and your negative life. It’s very sad for you
You don’t really seem like someone people would like.
Tis a little on the exposed side for a winter classroom.
Good for cider parties in the summer though.
Good thinking.
Robinson Crusoe would be proud of you.. !!
You can’t be doom and gloom all the time, sometimes a bit of been positive can lift you up.
Agreed
Housing problem solved, no morgage.
Well you can’t beat there optimism about the weather!
Fantastic to see how rapidly Mayo civilisation is advancing.
This is simply awesome. Yes it’s not brick and mortar boring thinking that would leave a huge carbon footprint. It’s out of the box thinking that encourages more out of the box thinking. I remember looking out glass windows of lecture rooms on a nice sunny day wishing for something like this. The fact that brick and mortar buildings are assumed to be a “continuous improvement ” from such structures as this makes one think about construction methods and it’s success could probably be measured by the pride that all involved have when they look at it. Large scale team building exercise with a functional result that can be used by many. Not all will see but not all have creative ability and less have creative ability with follow through. Congratulations to you all.
Thank you for your comments Croistoir. The project is part of an ongoing Green Campus initiative under Local Agenda 21 funding. The students explored the principles of place based education whilst constructing the classroom. The module that students were taking which this project is part of was sustainable environmental management. If you require any further information please contact me via the Facebook page.
Aodan
There’s an awful lot of ar$eholery in this thread.
See if you can spot who I’m on about.
I’ll post the answer in a short while. :-)
Eamon MacGowan?
Too easy
Well at least it’s air -conditioned!
Great to be able to do this without planning permission, wheelchair access, fire restrictions etc……..
It’s part of an environmental sustainability management module, exploring the principles of placed based education. It for the entire community not just the college but for local national schools and youth organisations.
Amazing health & safety has not shut it down !
They’ve been watching too much Bear Grylls.
I hope they wont be given the job of designing social housing.We might freeze to death!
Yeah wow fair play, threw it together as a wee little project!
When the sad fact remains that millions of children around the world do actually have their whole schooling in such lacking facilities due to poverty.
This is so Irish, any old halfhearted effort will do.
Shure it’s grand!
Relax eamon I’m sure it was meant as an exercise to get some youngsters out of a lecture hall and thinking outside the box, no one, well except Gerard, was suggesting this was the solution to all the worlds ills
Get some help Eamon. You appear to have a major malfunction. Well don’t gmit
Racist comments, to me, are suggestive of a certain tardiness with regard to the evolutionary process.
It doesn’t look a bit impressive to me.
A bit naff.
Students should be out protesting and throwing stones at the police.
Not wasting their time building such ridiculous childish tree houses.
P.S
I built a better tree-house than that when I was 9 years old.
Erm, can I ask is it hurricane proof?
Are you thinking of teaching a class there during one of our frequent hurricanes?
I could be cynical and point out how hedge schools came into my mind when I first saw this article. The country was under an administration that cared little for the common people at that point. Some things don’t change
have your say