Government has no answer for growing crisis in mortgage arrears
Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey has today said that government is failing to tackle the rising number of persons in mortgages arrears and choosing instead to sink taxpayers money into bailing out banks.
Deputy Carey has said that there are now close to 40,000 persons in Ireland in mortgage arrears, and hundreds of repossessions have taken place in the past twelve months.
Close to 5% of all mortgages in Ireland were now more than 90 days in arrears, with debts now totaling €670 million.
Deputy Carey said the government can no longer ignore the mortgage issue and he has called on changes to bankruptcy laws and more ways of tackling mortgage arrears and negative equity.
He said: “The government helped fuel the property bubble over the last decade and we had the likes of Bertie Ahern actively encouraging Irish people to go out and buy houses. Government tax breaks helped people get on the property market and no action was taken to take the heat out of the sector.
Now we have a situation where government has effectively turned its back on homeowners, and many of them are now in financial crisis. I believe the mortgage crisis has the potential now to destabilise and prevent any recovery.
In the coming weeks and months many interest only mortgages are due to come to an end and persons will be faced with repaying the full monthly amount. This will crea taxpayers money into bailing out banks.
Deputy Carey has said that there are now close to 40,000 persons in Ireland in mortgage arrears, and hundreds of repossessions have taken place in the past twelve months.
Close to 5% of all mortgages in Ireland were now more than 90 days in arrears, with debts now totaling €670 million.
Deputy Carey said the government can no longer ignore the mortgage issue and he has called on changes to bankruptcy laws and more ways of tackling mortgage arrears and negative equity.
He said: “The government helped fuel the property bubble over the last decade and we had the likes of Bertie Ahern actively encouraging Irish people to go out and buy houses. Government tax breaks helped people get on the property market and no action was taken to take the heat out of the sector.
Now we have a situation where government has effectively turned its back on homeowners, and many of them are now in financial crisis. I believe the mortgage crisis has the potential now to destabilise and prevent any recovery.
In the coming weeks and months many interest only mortgages are due to come to an end and persons will be faced with repaying the full monthly amount. This will create further hardship. We need the government to really tackle this issue.
Because of the ongoing issue of Anglo Irish Bank, they have ploughed every spare penny into bailing out an unimportant bank, while ordinary homeowners are left high and dry with little support.
In a major pape