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FIANNA FÁIL TD Michael McGrath has urged the banks to be “more humane and compassionate” in dealing with distressed borrowers.
Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, the party’s finance spokesperson said a number of people involved in business, who have commercial loans or have invested in property have told him about the “enormous pressure” the banks are putting on them.
“Unfortunately, I frequently hear of cases of suicide in which financial pressures were to the fore and the role of the banks has been brought to my attention,” he said.
“They are putting individuals and families under incredible pressure and in many cases there is a genuine inability to pay.”
He called on the banks to show more compassion “because behind the loan account on the computer screen is an individual and a family”.
McGrath said that the people supported the banks and “it is time for hem to treat people fairly and with a degree of dignity”.
The Fianna Fáil TD was speaking during a debate on extending the time frame of the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act of 2010 which gives the government the power to appoint directors to banking boards, enforce pay caps for new employees, etc. The legislation is due to expire at the end of this year but Michael Noonan wanted it extended to 2014.
After it was put to a vote, the motion passed 85 to 28 with McGrath voting for the motion.
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I’d have a lot more time for anything Michael McGrath said if he was an independent and wasn’t linked to the shower of gobsh**es who destroyed this country.
Where was their concern for the ordinary people of this country when the seeds of the current catastrophe were being sown by their banker and developer buddies?
That’s why he’s wheeled out on every occasion…Mehole Martin and Twiddly O’Dea are all part of the ‘grey’ brigade that will be synonomous with the economic vandalism they inflicted on this country so they’re being kept low key. Always remember the likes of Aherne and Cowen…Dempsey etc who are completely cocooned from this recession all thanks to the tax payer funded pensions these leeches live on. FG will be the same after the next election. The likes of Kenny, Noonan and Hogan will be despised and kept under wraps. What a country..
if there is 2 thing im good at its spotting a hypocrite a mile off and a good memory i havent forgot who set up the galway tent and stuffed it with developers who Anglo threw money at the same Anglo that we are bailing now.I also have not forgot who were the authors of benchmarking, yes benchmarking, which awarded fat cats huge increases in their salaries and pensions and threw scraps at the low to middle income worker. I also havent foregotten, Michael McGraths leader at the time Bertie telling prof Morgan Kelly to commit suicide when warning us of the imminent crash and least of all I havent forgotten who were the authors of the Croke Park Agreement, which to me is a state of the art life jacket used to keep the fat cats afloat while the rest of the country sinks so to me Micheal mcgrath is a hypocrite and belongs to a party that destroyed this great country which great men and women died for.
Well said Breda, he is only exploiting suicides for political gain.
In a straight between any one of us and Sean Fitzpatrick, McGrath will pick him, unless Seanie tells him otherwise.
hold steady ranters . The man is right. If small business cannot get a loan there is a big problem .Stop thinking millions. For a lot of business companies it could just mean a difference of a €60k loan versus a €50k lon. Where is the overall great financial risk here. We are not talking about the multi – million high flyers. This is bread and butter issue. The Banks re being way too robust in stress testing the needs of small conpanies. They ought to be simply reminded s to where their own capital is now coming from. Small business equals big employers on national, and secure , scale.
Spot on Breda, McGrath is the worst of the whole lot as he thimks we have forgotton what he and his cronies did to this country. It says a lot about us a nation when FF are growing in popularity.
We voted in these people, if we don’t like what they are doing then vote them out again.
We Irish are a bit on the thick side when it comes to politics, we vote in the likes or Michael Lowry and the Healy Rays, these people are vote buyers that do not bother to think nationally and only think about what goes on in a 30 mile radius of their homes.
You mean by humane, treat people like your lot treated the banks? Now wouldn’t that be a charm!
I agree with his sentiments. There are people with debts being hounded by banks every day.
I am not saying debts don’t need to be repaid. However there are people who absolutely no ability to repay.
What is the point in driving them over the edge? There is huge social devastation being caused
The Political parties all squandered OUR MONEY on the bank bailout. Now there are no funds to protect our most vulnerable. The banks have had their asses saved but in turn show little sympathy, like the biblical story of the lender showing mercy to the borrower who then treated his debtor harshly.
Public platitudes mean little as they impose harsh budgets and cut jobs while they greedily continue to protect the highest paid politicians and civil servants on the planet.
strange i want to green thumb your comment but thy are disabled
Raises serious questions about Michael McGrath. Out of his depth.
Every single one of these guys are out of their depth. They are failed school teachers, not professional economists/accountants/businessmen.
Politicians should have to sit an entrance exam and submit their CV’s before being allowed to put their name on a ballot paper.
Minimum qualifications should apply.
While they are at have them sit an aptitude test, would really like to see the results of that. Or maybe not, the results would probably Make me cry.
How???????????
The country’s leader mr Enda Kenny can’t give a live interview without somebody relying the answers for himself all propaganda out of them
Good try, but not in 1 million years would i ever consider voting for the FF traitor party. Every member of the FF party should be in prison, instead the ex-ministers and Taoisigh are getting paid for their screw up to the tune of millions of euro every year.
They are our Kapo’s.
The “people” supported the banks he says.Short memories and long necks these FF newbloods have .It was the FF government that supported the banks the people were not consulted.The people are supporting the banks now though because like FF FG/L are only too happy to keep in with the Banking Elite because it is they who Govern the country.So there is no point whatsoever in gentle little pussycat McGraths gently gently rhetoric .The guys he is appealing too must be going! but this guy and his buddies handed us the keys to the sweetshop and now he wants us to not devour the sweetee’s he’s a crazyman .Get Enda in here at least we wont get any guff off him.These Irish politicans they would make great Bankers its a pity their too untrustworthy even for the Banking sector and were rotten B$£$£$£S.
Wipe these guys out, all popularity talk and BS!
Reading through these comments I am delighted to see that the Irish electorate are not half as gullable as Michael McGrath and his Fianna Fail S***bag criminal friends seem to think. Why are the Journal.ie giving these people coverage in the first place? they ruined Ireland. I don’t want to read about them unless it’s a story about their conviction for economic treason.
Jail those FF gombeens. Destroyed the fabric of our society.
Then there’s the woman who goes to the dentist. As he leans over to begin working on her, she grabs his Testicles.
The dentist says, “Madam, I believe you’ve got a hold of my privates.” The woman replies, “Yes. We’re going to be careful not to hurt each other, aren’t we.”
That is the only way to deal with the banks! Pleas get you nowhere.
we could close the banks tomorrow if everybody withdrew there money together
That is the greatest truth of all time, simple, direct and with results, but even those against the banks won’t get together to do it, it’s a pitty Ireland is so divided as it has always been… :-(
Where’s the value in extending the act when the directors appointed are not representing us and pay caps are completely ignored?
very 4 years we change the ring masters but the clowns stay the same
‘TD’(FF), ‘banks’, ‘humane’ and ‘compassionate’, all in the one sentence.
Has anyone a number for the Guinness Book Of Records?
very short memories .thy will be in power again soon . shame on us.
That’s like asking the Wolf to show compassion for the lamb….these banks are amoral parasites and are a law until themselves…or so they think…..recently a friend who was in a mabs programme was dragged to court to repay something she had displayed clearly that she could not at present…the judge was was not impressed at the waste of court time and told the bank where the door was….
Is FF still a legal organisation?
No, and they’ll say they have the right to associate etc etc but it really says a lot about them that after all they have done that they still have members, representatives and voters.
There are a lot of very bad eggs in this country.
I have never supported FF, but Michael McGrath’s call is sincere and appropriate. The great house price scam of the noughties needs to be addressed.
Do you really believe politely asking Mr. Banker to help out will achieve that?
Mr McGrath is naive in the extreme if he believes so.
FF were responsible for that swindle. Corrupt bunch of b*******s.
It is fairly low of the prat to be using suicide as a political stunt. He had no problem with his gang boss Ahern calling on people who disagreed with FF and their way of doing “business” to kill themselves.
This man and his associates are lower than dog dirt.
Whether you like McGrath or not what he is saying is correct. Forget the politics for once and as to who is responsible for the mess . Fact is that banks revenue and local authorities are driving people to suicide. Maybe those in safe jobs all their lives cant see this but I say wake up and look around you. People who had their own businesses which collapsed or are doing very badly are being treated appallingly by the institutions I have mentioned above. At least if you are unemployed paye you get assistance from the State and are not being hounded by the revenue and local authorities. Im only surprised that the suicide rate is not higher. In fact I believe that if something is not done shortly next year will see a spate of suicides as more businesses collapse. So lets look a little further than our personal views of particular politicans and study the message closer.
Hear Hear Max
Financial stress related suicides have reached crisis levels in Ireland.
At this stage I don’t care if Adolf Hitler comes back from the grave to stop this travesty.
As long as it is stopped right now!
there’s no doubt who the masters of society are when governments and politicians have to grovel institutions that we have saved by pumping millions into. They obviously have us by the short and curlys
That’s like ASKING the people of Ireland,” would you mind bailing out the banks because they have no money left after gambling it away”I reckon both responses would be the same!!
Banks cannot be expected to be compassionate but they can be forced to comply with the law. Beef up the Central Bank Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears. Provide an independent appeal from a bank’s refusal under the Code and that would help people to believe in a fair resolution under the Code.( ps the Bank pays for the Appeal)
If we are a democracy can we not get them out of government before they make more regressive and cruel changes/laws? If a person wasn’t doing what they were hired to do in a private company they would be replaced!
McGrath was shocked to find that banks do not wine and dine all their customers, they do not fund their campaigns, they do not give them interest free loans or loans with no payback date.
They treat people who are not FF gurriers very differently.
McGrath, the jockey rang, he wants his b*ll*cks back
Compassion and humanity ,what does he mean by that…..be nice to them when you are throwing them out of their homes. More empty words from an attention seeking out of touch useless politician.
Which way did deputy McGrath vote on the bill to make easier for the insolvent banks to repossess homes I wonder?
thejournal.ie/loophole-banks-repossession-712594-Dec2012/
It’s a pity the td’s and minister hadn,t more compassion with the budget!!
While FF obviously caused the current problems through complete incompetence and they need to be punished at the polls for the foreseeable future, given the lack of any real mainstream alternative it would force the current FG/LAB coaliton to think hard about the decisions they are making if people started seriously backing FF again.
I believe the reason FG and LAB are so detached from the real people is that they believe that nobody will vote for FF again. If there was a mass movement to rejoin FF (just in the short term), it might scare the current coalition into taking the views of the people seriously.
It would be very difficult thing to do for most people, but I don’t see any other possible way to get FG/LAB to listen to us from their ivory towers as there is unfortunately no other mainstream, middle ground party who could hope to get people from all sections of society to join them at the moment.
Since the founding of this state a political pattern has evolved. FF govern and destroy things fill their pockets and give their spittle lickers jobs in key places in the media and civil service. FG and Labour by default inherit a mess are elected on the basis of impossible promises and they invariably have to break,so they will only last one term and the ff legion is back again..Any attempt to bring a new political party is doomed to failure in this country,use the example of the pd s and greens.
Joe, at least this generation has SF and the independents as alternative. The Oligarchy is coming to an end, not before time
Cal we have a long way to go,but you are right there is a bit more choice.
There is a name for FF supporters – they are called traitors.
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