Call for banks to absorb subprime loans

BANKS must help bail out people struggling to repay mortgages and shoulder some of the pain, according to the Master of the High Court.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Edmund Honohan SC revealed there was a backlog of over 1,000 repossession cases pending before his court. He also called for the code of conduct on handling repossessions to be rewritten.

Mr Honohan appealed to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan to persuade the country’s main banks to absorb loans from subprime lenders to help ease the burden on borrowers.