Speaking on local radio stations across Co. Tipperary yesterday, Independent TD Deputy Michael Lowry accused financial institutions of being greedy, aggressive and often arrogant in their treatment of ordinary house-holders and their families.
Following a review undertaken by the Deputy; he is now aware that appearing before the Court in Nenagh in recent weeks, financial institutions sought some 86 applications for home repossessions, with similar figures being repeated in the town of Clonmel.
Deputy Lowry stated, “The majority of these applications are causing intense anxiety, distress and disruption to Tipperary individuals and their families, who remain, firmly, the victims of a banking industry which has been permitted to run out of control.”
Deputy Lowry continued, “At present, borrowers are being held to account for the behaviour of these financial institutions who are permitted to sail completely free of having to take any share of the responsibility for the chaos and heart-break. This present crisis has been caused primarily by these same financial institutions, which had to hand all the advantages of ‘top-notch’ advice and have spent the last year before the Banking Inquiry, unable to recall their past actions and refusing profusely to take any responsibility for their totally dissolute actions.”
“I firmly believe that borrowers, particularly distressed home-owners, should get some respite. Why should thousands of individuals and whole families be put on local authority housing lists, simply because bankers became fixated; wildly encouraging people to borrow 100% loans, most often knowingly aware of peoples inability to repay?”
“I now demand a new deal for distressed home-owners, under which our Banks and Vulture Funds, which purchased many of their Loan Books, would immediately be forced to enter into the following arrangements with borrowers. In other words, where a borrower is committed to an agreed affordable repayment situation (initially for a trial period of say 2 years), same should be permitted to keep their homes, on the condition that they abide by same pre-agreed affordable repayment. Legislation to compel these arrangements should be a priority for any incoming Government,” concluded the Independent Tipperary Deputy.
Leave a Reply