Scepticism over mortgage writedown promise

A vow that the Government is not ruling out an IMF-favoured mortgage writedown plan has been met with scepticism.

Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte gave a lukewarm response to the IMF’s call for far-reaching debt-restructuring initiatives to spur growth. He said the call was not specifically targeted at Ireland, but could not be ignored.

“I think we would have to look at it, but we would have to look at who would pay for it — would it be the rest of taxpayers who would pay for it and what would be the quantum in a situation like that?”