THE CATHOLIC bishops have proposed that homes not be repossessed and that terms and conditions of mortgages be renegotiated in line with people’s ability to pay.
They also called on banks to urgently review their lending practices to ensure businesses receive necessary support and appealed to all to have regard for the common good when reacting to tax and pay adjustments introduced to bring about economic stability.
The proposals were presented in Maynooth yesterday by the Bishop of Elphin, Most Rev Christopher Jones, as the Irish Bishops’ Conference spring meeting came to an end. The proposals were “an acknowledgment that we live in extraordinary times’’, he said. “While the temporary moratoria offered by some lenders are a welcome development, they do not ultimately remove the fear of repossession from families today.
“If the Government can intervene to support the banking system, which is essential for the proper functioning of society, similarly I am asking the Government to explore – with lenders – ways in which the family can be protected from repossession . . .’’
Bishop Jones, who is chairman of the bishops’ commission for family and children, said the mortgage proposal was intended for everyone with a mortgage.
“There is a lot of fear around. We must do all that we can do to remove the unnecessary fear from families that a sudden loss of income may bring,’’ he said.
He insisted it was “not a blank cheque proposal . . . In essence I am suggesting that the terms and conditions of a mortgage agreement could be renegotiated to enable a family to repay at a level appropriate to their current circumstances. This could be regularly reviewed.’’
He said “disruption of families and family life should be avoided where at all possible. I am therefore asking the State today, as it is obliged to do under the Constitution, ‘to protect the family . . . as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the nation and the State’.’’
He called on banks “to urgently review their lending practices to ensure that businesses receive the necessary support to see them through the current economic crisis.’’
He appealed to all to have regard for the common good “when responding to taxation measures and pay adjustments”.
Dr Monica Applewhite, who has extensive experience of dealing with clerical sex abuse issues in the US, and who addressed the bishops’ meeting (see www.safeguarding.ie), said she found that “for an institution to recover there has to be a true and honest accounting of what occurred, before it can move forward’’.
Commenting on recent events in Cloyne diocese, the Bishop of Dromore, Most Rev John McAreavey, said the appointment of Archbishop Dermot Clifford as apostolic administrator there had brought “a fresh mandate”. The archbishop was “an outsider’’ who had “full authority over all the different issues in Cloyne’’, he said.