THE GOVERNMENT HAS sold tens of thousands of families “down the river” by allowing the IBRC to sell their mortgages to American investment groups, according to Independent TD Stephen Donnelly.
Referencing the sale of former Irish Nationwide mortgages to hedge funds Lone Star and Oaktree Capital Management, Donnelly said: “This government has sold these men, women and children down the river”.
The Wicklow TD said it was unfair that the families affected were not given the opportunity to bid on their own loans.
“Sales of this type around the world typically attract a discount of about 70 per cent,” Donnelly said.
He accused the government of failing to take “the welfare of these tens of thousands of men, women and children” into account by allowing the liquidator to make the deal as there was “no binding commitment” with the hedge funds in terms of their code of conduct.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the liquidator’s “prime mandate was to find the best possible price” for the Irish State.
Noonan added that homeowners whose mortgages were sold “haven’t been disadvantaged in any way by the transfer of their loans to a different owner”.
He said that protocols established by Central Bank would be honoured by the US firms in question.
Noonan said that Donnelly’s comments illustrated the problem of the Opposition’s approach of always standing up for the individual instead of the taxpayer.
Donnelly stated that the coalition had adopted a “Sure, let’s hope everything works out” approach.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin called on the government to help the 13,000 mortgage owners that have been sent legal letters from their banks and now face the “potentially devastating prospect of repossession”.
He said the Oireachtas Committee was yesterday informed that up to 1,500 Ulster Bank mortgage holders could be evicted.
Noonan accused Martin of “selective quotation to make some kind of a political point”.
He said that the purpose of such letters was to get borrowers to engage with their lenders and find a solution to their mortgage problems.
Noonan added that he was “absolutely delighted” that the Oireachtas Finance Committee were meeting with the heads of all the main lenders this week to “put them through their paces”.
However, Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said the bank CEOs had “misled and lied to” the committee.
Doherty told the government to “stop hiding behind the Central Bank and start to reign [bankers] in”.
He encouraged Noonan to do “what you should have done last year” and vote against the salary of Bank of Ireland’s CEO Richie Boucher at the bank’s AGM on 25 April.
“Despite all the hardship being endured by ordinary, hardworking people across this state, top bankers like Richie Boucher are continuing, to this day, to show utter contempt for citizens,” Doherty stated.
Noonan said he would consider this request but warned that such an action might send a negative signal to the “wider investment community”.
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