Ireland will have to deal with mortgage debt by overhauling bankruptcy laws and introducing a personal insolvency regime, Minister for State at the Department of Finance Brian Hayes, said today.
Ireland will have to deal with mortgage debt by overhauling bankruptcy laws and introducing a personal insolvency regime, Minister for State at the Department of Finance Brian Hayes, said today.
He said any solution would have to be in the context of the "totality of debt".
Yesterday the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan yesterday the Government had agreed with the troika that publication of legislation on bankruptcy would be delayed until the end of April.
A key provision of this legislation will be to shorten the period of bankruptcy in this State from 12 years.
Almost 13 per cent of private residential mortgages were either more than 90 days in arrears or had been restructured at the end of September, according to the Central Bank.
The State has injected about €62 billion into the country's lenders over the past three years to deal with massive loan losses.
Mr Hayes said while Irish banks had the capital to deal with troubled mortgages, "we are not going to see writedowns" until there is "certainty" on insolvency laws.
Mr Hayes said the Government would deal with continuing differences between Ireland and the UK, where bankrupts can be discharged after a year.
The Government is also working a regime that will allow out-of-court debt settlements.
Bloomberg
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