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.

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.

Senior debt advisers have warned that households continue to face paying down intolerable debt burdens despite new official figures showing that overall personal debt levels had fallen to a 10-year low.