The Irish Mortgage Holders Association says a couple needs to be earning around €80,000 between them before a bank will speak with them.

Ulster Bank has refused to rule out further sales of distressed mortgage loans to vulture funds despite a school of thought emerging that such transactions could end under a Sinn Féin or Fianna Fáil led government.

Mortgage debt advocate David Hall has predicted that AIB and other Irish banks are facing “the end of the road” in selling distressed mortgage loans, under any new Sinn Féin or Fianna Fáil finance minister.

The Central Bank, the Parliamentary Budget Office, and the world’s largest ratings firms have all urged the next government to avoid pumping up spending that could lead to a new crash.

Shares in the Irish housebuilders and the banks tanked, but the cost of borrowing for the Irish State remained at record low levels, as markets reacted to the sweeping electoral gains of Sinn Féin.

MABS, the State-backed Money Advice and Budgeting Service and the Banking and Payments Federation have announced the agreement, saying it will help consumers who are struggling with mortgage debt.

The HSE spent nearly €7 million on private ambulances in the first eight months of this year.

Thousands of people who are in danger of losing their home are the “hidden homeless” according to David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association.

On two occasions this year, it took an ambulance more than 60 minutes to arrive at a life-threatening emergency, according to Ambulance Service data.

The Central Bank is investigating the legality of commercial banks slapping legal fees onto the mortgages of their customers who have fallen into arrears even before cases are concluded, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

There is a call on the Health Minister to carry out a review of resource levels for HSE and Dublin Fire Brigade ambulances in Dublin.

Protections for mortgage holders will dramatically diminish if the sales of non-performing loans to so-called "vulture funds" continues, campaigners have claimed.

The CEO of Irish Mortgage Holder's Association David Hall will be contesting claims made by Revenue in a High Court application seeking freezing orders against a Kerry animal welfare charity.

The Revenue Commissioners, in a bid to get payment of a revenue debt, have secured temporary High Court orders restraining one of Ireland's largest animal welfare charities reducing its assets below €191,000 or transferring its lands to another charity.

The Master of the High Court, who has been a vocal critic of the way banks handle repossession cases, has been told to stop dealing with all debt cases.

Almost 3,800 repossession orders were granted by the courts over a four-year period, figures released to the Irish Examiner have revealed.

The numbers that will be affected by home repossessions “could fill Croke Park” because of the intransigence of banks and the “cancer” of vulture funds, a mortgage campaigner has claimed.

The sale of mortgage loan books and the "cancer" of vulture funds means Ireland is walking blindfolded into a massive social crisis, a mortgage campaigner has said.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe is expected to bring proposals to regulate vulture funds who buy up mortgages to Cabinet this week.

Ireland’s spiralling rental crisis is failing to be addressed because one in every five TDs are landlords and have a clear conflict of interest on the issue, campaigners have warned.

Housing Agency chairman Conor Skehan is facing fresh calls to resign immediately after defending his claims some homeless people are “gaming the system” and that record Irish homeless rates are “normal” by international standards.

State-sponsored sub-prime lending. That is what the Government announced this week and it is a disaster waiting to happen.

A new Government-backed mortgage scheme will not solve the severe shortage of homes and could further push prices up, it has been claimed

An advocacy group for people who lost their homes as a result of the tracker mortgage scandal will take “aggressive” action against banks.

Bank chiefs are facing the threat of tougher levies or even fines if they fail to set out how and when customers ripped off by the tracker mortgage scandal will be properly repaid and compensated.

The banks are being accused of collusion in forcing people off their trackers.

Mortgage campaigner David Hall is hoping to replicate the buy-and-rent back deal he has done with AIB with the State’s other major homeloan providers.

Q. How does the scheme work?

The Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy says a scheme to keep the worst mortgage defaulters in their homes has the potential to be a game changer.

The Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has ruled out creating another Irish Water type body to solve the country's housing crisis.

A home repossession “guillotine is on the way down”, dwarfing the current homeless crisis and creating a huge catastrophe.

The HSE has refused to comment on why a heart and double lung transplant patient had to rely on a stranger’s offer of the use of a private aircraft to attend a vital medical assessment in the UK.

Advocates for debt-saddled homeowners said they are shocked by official figures showing a rise in new early-stage mortgage arrears.

Official figures have shown a second successive quarterly increase in homeowners falling into early-stage arrears, with one in 10 households now behind in their mortgage payments.

David Hall, chief executive of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, has warned that home repossessions will begin in earnest this year, having a potentially catastrophic effect on the housing market.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

The Government has been urged to ban the repossession of tens of thousands of homes because Irish courts may have failed to give at-risk families a full breakdown of their rights.

New laws protecting renters, known as the Tyrrelstown Amendment, come into force today.

Opposition TDs are to demand that receivers and vulture funds are reclassified as landlords. And a bill set to go before the Dáil tonight also includes a measure ensuring tenants are not evicted due to the sale of their homes.

The State’s largest private ambulance service owned by mortgage advocate David Hall last year returned to profit.

Disgraced former chief executive of suicide prevention charity Console Paul Kelly threatened to sue the HSE if any details about the financial scandal emerged just 24 hours before RTÉ’s high-profile exposé on the organisation.

Suicide charity Pieta House is taking over services previously operated by Console in a deal finalised yesterday to ensure minimum disruption to clients.

The likely liquidation of scandal-hit suicide bereavement organisation Console and transfer of its services were being discussed by the board late last night.

The Department of Health has come under pressure after it emerged the former CEO of Console was brought in for questioning five years ago regarding his stint posing as a fake doctor in the early 1980s.