Noonan insists taxpayer must be protected in Dáil row over sale of IBRC loan book

Nobody stands up for the taxpayer anymore, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has told the Dáil as he defended the sale of IBRC mortgages to US hedge funds Lone Star and Oaktree Capital Management.

Mr Noonan said “everybody stands up for the individual who has a difficulty”, but nobody stood up for the taxpayer. “The proposition always being put is that the individual who has a difficulty must be relieved by taking funds from the generality of taxpayers”.

Independent TD Stephen Donnelly claimed Minister did not want to send out any signals to international markets "that there is anything wrong here", but he had no issue about signals "to the Irish citizens who elected him and whom he is meant to be looking after".

Mr Noonan said it was much easier to present the individual case but he was obliged under law to protect the generality of taxpayers “so they do not get another bill”.

During leaders’ questions Mr Donnelly said the Minister’s view on the sale was the funds would voluntarily comply with Irish codes on the handling of distressed mortgages.

But the Wicklow TD said the Minister chose not to consider the interest of mortgage holders, not to let families bid on their own mortgages and not to provide oversight on how the funds behaved towards loan holders.

He said the criteria for the sale by the special liquidator KPMG included wide criteria. But “in all those wide criteria, nowhere has the interests of tens of thousands of men, women and children involved crept in,” he claimed. He asked why the Minister was able to consider many criteria but “somehow was not able to consider the interests of Irish citizens”.

Mr Noonan said the job of the liquidator was to ensure he got the “best possible price for assets so that the taxpayer is not asked to contribute more to fill some kind of black hole if the liquidation does not produce full value”.

'Worse off'
He added that "no single mortgage holder was worse off because Lone Star or Oaktree has his mortgage then he was when his mortgage was in IBRC. He is no worse off but Deputy Donnelly is making a case that he should be better off and that the taxpayer should pay for it."

Earlier Mr Noonan rejected a claim by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin that it was “pot luck” how a mortgage holder was treated, depending on which bank their loan was with, in some cases there was a €57,000 differential. Mr Noonan insisted the Central Bank had set down protocols.

Mr Martin said banks had issued 13,000 letters ed with the potential end result of repossession.

Mr Noonan told him that unless repossession was part of the legal system there would be no mortgage market because nobody would lend if they could not realise the collateral.