Noonan: home repossessions being handled reasonably well

Banks have been dealing with the issue of home repossessions "reasonably well", according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

He said “this idea of tens of thousands of houses being repossessed is just not correct”.

Mr Noonan said “I appreciate that it’s very hard on people. I appreciate people have lost their jobs and I appreciate the concerns and I appreciate how upset people are.

“But in a very extreme situation it’s been handled reasonably well by the banks.”

He was responding to Independent TD Séamus Healy who asked Mr Noonan, as the majority shareholder in AIB and its subsidiary EBS as well as the majority shareholder in Permanent TSB, "to call a meeting of the boards of the banks and to instruct them "not to repossess family homes".

He said that if the bank directors would not agree to that then “sack those members. You have the power to do that as majority shareholder.

“There are thousands of families in this country, irrespective of what you say Minister, facing homelessness by these banks, of which the Government is a majority shareholder.”

Mr Noonan said a relationship framework had been agreed by the Government’s predecessors in office that “the political side will not interfere in commercial decisions” and they did not want to politicise the banks.

“It would be a very sad day for the country if you were looking for a loan and your first port of call had to be your local TD rather than the bank manager.”

He said 207 houses were repossessed on foot of court order and “that is not the 10s of thousands of houses that’s sometimes recited on the commentary on this”.

He said 121,000 mortgages on private dwellings had been restructured and the success rate was 86.6 per cent.

“So progressively the problem is being solved.”

Mr Noonan said statistics from the Central Bank showed that in the third quarter of 2015 (July, August and September) legal proceedings were issued in 1,687 cases of private mortgages.

“There were 798 cases where court proceedings concluded but arrears remained outstanding and the court granted a repossession order in 329 cases.

A total of 422 properties were taken into possession by lenders during the quarter and 215 were voluntary.

“It’s a very small amount to go through the system and since the changes were made by the Minister for Justice and that the money and Budgeting Advice Service are assisting people before the courts that will diminish even further,” Mr Noonan added.