Fianna Fáil local election candidate for the Killarney Electoral Area has expressed his dismay at the inaction of the government to protect some mortgage holders, including a significant number in Kerry.
Families and homeowners, who in good faith, took out a mortgage with the then Irish Nationwide Building Society, have seen their loans move to the IBRC. Now the government, which owns IBRC, is abandoning them to overseas vulture funds.
Last week Fianna Fáil proposed very straightforward legislation on the matter, which would address the problems caused by the wind-up of IBRC.
“Families, including my own, who have an IBRC mortgage, have been potentially left out to dry on this” said Niall Kelleher. “It makes no sense for the government to refuse to support this legislation. Action is needed immediately, not in 6 months time, when families are informed that their mortgages have been sold to vultures. I’ve met with some families who are extremely concerned and extremely anxious about what could happen. The Fianna Fáil finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, has described this as leaving the mortgage holders extremely vulnerable and having to rely on the kindness of strangers.”
The legislation that has been proposed by Fianna Fáil is titled ‘The Protection of Residential Account Holders Bill’ which is designed to ensure that any mortgage holder whose mortgage is sold to an unregulated vulture fund would continue to enjoy the protections of the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears and access to the Financial Services Ombudsman (FSO).
“Now the government appear to be making all the right noise on the issue, they’ve kicked the can down the road on this. Almost 13,000 families in every part of Ireland have to wait for at least two years for the government to legislate. It is needed now, not in 2015” said Niall Kelleher.
Niall Kelleher concluded, “If there was a political will to do this, the government would find a way to protect the IBRC mortgage holders. In the coming weeks, we will see the completion of the sale of the IBRC mortgage book and IBRC mortgage holders will be left high and dry.”
