Noonan urged to ‘light fire’ under banks

Minister for Finance

Michael Noonan

should “light a fire” under the banks and the

Central Bank

to deal properly with distressed mortgages, the Dáil was told.

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty accused Mr Noonan of treating the banks with kid gloves, and said "we are about to enter the sixth calendar year of a mortgage crisis which has got out of control and doubled during the Minister's tenure".

He said it seemed not to be waning substantially when 118,000 mortgages remained in arrears and 77 per cent of them had not been restructured. These were "figures of failure", the Donegal South West TD said.

Mr Noonan said “a more important statistic is that the people involved continue to live in their own homes, despite the fact that their mortgages are in arrears”.

He said: “Ensuring they remain there is the primary policy objective.”

Mr Doherty said the Minister was “lighting fires” when he entered office, “or at least you were talking tough with the banks”.

Mr Noonan said the Central Bank was independent under law. "The Minister for Finance lighting a fire under it would not, therefore, be the appropriate way to proceed."

Individual customers
He said the implementation by banks of sustainable mortgage arrears strategies for individual customers was key to addressing the crisis.

Banks were initially required by the Central Bank to propose sustainable solutions for 20 per cent of mortgages in arrears of more than 90 days by the end of June, rising to 30 per cent by the end of September, and 50 per cent by year-end. He said the September returns indicated they have met and in some cases exceeded the 30 per cent target.

He said by June 79,357 mortgages had been restructured, and over 60 per cent of those were meeting the terms of their arrangement. The number of accounts in arrears of more than 90 days had dropped from 82,624 to 81,156.