A BLANKET write-off of mortgage debt has been ruled out by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, who said the Government’s focus would be to protect the family home.
“The suggestion that there be a blanket write-off of mortgage debt is not realistic and is only giving people who are in genuine mortgage difficulty false expectations, which is not doing them any good,” said Mr Gilmore.
He said yesterday the Government’s priority was to try as far as was possible to ensure people could continue to live in their own homes.
“We are obviously talking about people who have been making a genuine effort, and there is a distinction between those who can’t pay and those who simply won’t pay. That is our focus, the home, making sure that people keep the roof over their head.”
He said that, from the very beginning, the Government had recognised there were a large number of people who were in difficulty with paying their mortgages and were worried about losing their home.
“The fear of losing the home is an even bigger fear than the fear of losing the job. So the Government’s focus from the moment of its formation was that we would work to support people who were in difficulty with paying their mortgages and work to ensure, as far as possible, that people did not lose their home,” he said.
The Government’s Economic Management Council was expecting a report from an interdepartmental expert group in the next few weeks and would then make decisions on what further actions should be taken, he added.
“There isn’t a one-size-fits-all there. The circumstances in which people find themselves are very different,” said Mr Gilmore.
Some people, he said, had difficulty paying the mortgage because they had lost their job or run into hard times, but hopefully in a lot of these cases this was a temporary phenomenon.
“So you are looking about providing support to people to get over the hump.”
He said another category was people who had reached the endgame and were being threatened with repossession. Tailor-made solutions would have to be found for those people.
“A lot of the commentary over August was that there was some kind of magic bullet that would solve all of these problems in one go. There isn’t. What has to be done has to be tailor-made to meet the differing circumstances that exist.”
A Department of Finance spokesman last night declined to comment on a report on RTÉ news that the Government was considering measures that would enable those facing repossession to rent their homes from the State after they had lost ownership of them.
The spokesman said the interdepartmental group was not due to report for three to four weeks “so we are making no comment on it whatsoever”.
Fianna Fáil Senator Thomas Byrne said yesterday there was total confusion at the heart of Government on the issue. “The Government must be clear in its approach, and the failure to do that is fuelling confusion and uncertainty for families with large mortgage debt,” he said.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan is expected to address the mortgage debt issue when he appears this morning before the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform.