Lenders are more willing to strike new permanent deals with troubled mortgage borrowers, if they are less distressed in the first place, Central Bank research has shown.

The running sore of mortgage arrears — eight years after the onset of the financial crisis — is back on top of the political agenda as Independent TDs negotiate their participation in a new government, the Irish Examiner has learned.

Most US economic commentators will tell you one of the main reasons the US is recovering better than Europe is because the US cleaned up the balance sheets of the US banks.

There has been a further fall in the number of mortgages in arrears.

Greece has failed to convince European creditors to release vital bailout funds to shore up the country’s public coffers and its crippled banks.

The number of home owners in mortgage arrears is continuing to fall, according to new figures from the Department of Finance.

A solution could be found that resolves the arrears crisis while also providing houses at affordable rents for thousands of families, writes Michael Byrne            

Central Bank figures showing a slowdown in the numbers entering so-called early arrears fails to capture the huge scale of the home debt crisis, debt experts have said.

AIB has confirmed that over 5,700 owner-occupied homes in mortgage arrears face being taken over by the bank amid suggestions that a “tsunami” of repossessions are on the way.

Seven in 10 residential mortgage holders behind on their repayments are in long-term arrears — a third of which are grappling with a payment backlog of two years or more.

The number of mortgages in arrears fell for the sixth consecutive quarter at the end of last year but those in long-term arrears of more than two years continued to rise.

The percentage of mortgages in long-term arrears is on the increase with more than €8bn of total arrears falling into this category, new data shows.

Almost 70% of mortgage holders behind on their repayments were more than 90 days in arrears at the end of August despite recent improvements, Central Bank figures reveal.

The new benchmarks set by the Central Bank as part of the mortgage arrears resolution targets mean that fewer than 30% of mortgage holders will have to have a sustainable solution in order for the banks to meet the targets.

The removal of the Dunne judgment prohibiting banks from repossessing homes has helped Ulster Bank convince customers in arrears to engage with the bank.

A woman said she “panicked” and hid a bank’s repossession letter from her husband, as experts warned that families in mortgage arrears they can no longer ignore the problems as this will be “the year of the repossessions”.

People in mortgage arrears were yesterday warned that “sticking your head in the sand will not help”.

Figures from the Department of Finance show that the number of mortgages in arrears of more than 90 days has declined to just under 79,500.

A day of reckoning for people in mortgage arrears of more than two years is coming for both the banks and the homeowners, the head of the Irish Mortgage Holders Associations, David Hall, has warned.